Amy Balkin Tania Bruguera Candy Chang Minerva Cuevas Agnes Denes Tatyana Fazlalizadeh Karen Finley Coco Fusco Guerrilla Girls Sharon Hayes Lynn Hershman Leeson Jenny Holzer Emily Jacir Suzanne Lacy Marie Lorenz Susan O’Malley Adrian Piper Laurie Jo Reynolds | Tamms Year Ten Favianna Rodriguez Bonnie Ora Sherk Stephanie Syjuco Mierle Laderman Ukeles southern exposure off-site commissions Constance Hockaday Jenifer K. Wofford

Edited by Christian L. Frock and Tanya Zimbardo

With contributions by María del Carmen Carrión Courtney Fink Leila Grothe Stephanie Hanor, PhD Valerie Imus Meredith Johnson

Mills College Art Museum Oakland, California This catalogue is published on the occasion of (ARS), New York: p. 45 Public Works: Artists’ Interventions 1970s–Now, David Cunningham: p. 48 an exhibition organized by the Mills College Gary Nakamoto: p. 57 Art Museum from September 16 through Southern Exposure: p. 58, p. 61 (top), p. 125, p. 127 December 13, 2015. The exhibition is curated Maysha Mohamedi: p. 61 (bottom) by Christian L. Frock and Tanya Zimbardo. SPUR: p. 62 Jason Wyche and Creative Time: p. 66 The exhibition and publication is supported Casey Kelbaugh and Creative Time: p. 69 by the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation. Creative Time: p. 73 George Lange/Outline: pp. 76-77 © 2015 the authors, artists, and the Mills College John McGrail: p. 87 Art Museum, 5000 MacArthur Boulevard, Dustin Chambers: p. 89 Oakland, California, 94613, www.mcam.mills.edu. Andrea Geyer: p. 97 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may Chris Johnson: p. 105 be reproduced in any manner without permission. Chris Murphy: p. 115 (top) Jeanine Oleson: p. 115 (bottom) Editors: Christian L. Frock and Tanya Zimbardo Publication Coordinator: Maysoun Wazwaz ISBN: 978-0-9854600-2-0 Content Editor: Morgan Pierce LCCN: 2015947294 Designer: John Borruso Printer: Solstice Press Front Cover: Bonnie Ora Sherk, detail of Sitting Still I, 1970, San Francisco. Courtesy the artist Photography: Images courtesy the artists, with Image on Page 2: Karen Finley, 1-900-ALL- additional photography credits below. KAREN, 1998. Courtesy the artist and Fales Robert Campbell: front cover, p. 36, p. 117 Library and Special Collections, New York Timothy Greenfield-Sanders: p. 2 University Andrew Burton/Getty Images: p. 10 Back Cover: Candy Chang, I Wish this Was, New Bob Daemmrich/Corbis Images: p. 13 Orleans, 2010. Courtesy the artist Twitter: pp. 14-15, p. 32 Richard Levine/Corbis Images: p. 16 David Shankbone: p. 23 ©2015 Jenny Holzer/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York: pp. 24-25, p. 101 Facebook: p. 30 CartoDB and SRogers: p. 31 Laurie Jo Reynolds: p. 35 (top) Adrianne Dues: p. 35 (bottom) Mayumi Hamanaka and Kala Art Institute: p. 39 Lawrence Halprin: p. 41 Marion Gray: p. 42 ©2015 Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society Contents

Foreword 7 Dr. Stephanie Hanor

Whose Public Space Where? Notes on the Politics of Public Works, Private Interests, and the Spaces in Between 11 Christian L. Frock

Public Address: Bay Area Performances, Temporary Installations, and Nomadic Projects 37 Tanya Zimbardo

Talking Points 59 Leila Grothe and Courtney Fink

Talking Points 67 María del Carmen Carrión and Meredith Johnson

Works in the Exhibition 77

Public Works: Southern Exposure Off-Site Valerie Imus 122

Contributors 129

Curators’ Acknowledgments 135

Foreword Dr. Stephanie Hanor

mills college embraces diversity and social justice as key compo- nents of a vibrant undergraduate women’s education. The school has long been committed to challenging social, cultural, and economic inequalities in order to enhance and support critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, creativity, and collaboration. The artists in Public Works: Artists’ Inter- ventions 1970s–Now embody this ethos, creating works that explore the inherent politics and social conditions of creating art in public space. This is one of the first museum exhibitions to examine the unique perspective of public practice by women artists from the 1970s to the present. Public Works moves beyond the traditional view of public art as permanent and monumental sculpture or installation. Instead, the exhi- bition focuses on often small but powerful artistic interventions in the urban environment that function as a forum for exchange between artists and a wide-reaching public. Currently there is a strong interest in art and social engagement projects that are designed to invoke critical thinking and reflection about social issues and to catalyze action toward making positive change to address those issues. Many of the artists in the exhibi- tion have a sustained history of addressing these ideas and several projects are ongoing. Public Works demonstrates the precedents for these actions in the groundbreaking early work of artists in the 1970s, while exploring contemporary women artists’ practices in the public realm. The exhibition showcases the works of Amy Balkin, Tania Bruguera, Candy Chang, Minerva Cuevas, Agnes Denes, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, Karen Finley, Coco Fusco, Guerrilla Girls, Sharon Hayes, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Jenny Holzer, Emily Jacir, Suzanne Lacy with Unique Holland,

7 Annice Jacoby, Chris Johnson, and Julio César Morales, Marie Lorenz, Susan O’Malley, Adrian Piper, Laurie Jo Reynolds with Tamms Year Ten, Jeanine Oleson and Jean Casella/Solitary Watch, Favianna Rodriguez, Bonnie Ora Sherk, Stephanie Syjuco, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. The exhibition curators and I are grateful for each of the artist’s participation and support of Public Works. Many have helped create new iterations of the presentations of their projects, at times adding material that has not been exhibited previously. Public Works is curated by Christian L. Frock, independent curator, writer, and founder of Invisible Venue, and Tanya Zimbardo, Assistant Curator of Media Arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Their various curatorial practices have focused on the presentation and examination of public art and interventions, site-specific installations, avant-garde publications and multiples, and alternative spaces. Together, they have done an outstanding job of bringing together a compelling selection of work that illuminates and contextualizes artists’ actions within public space as an active form of expression, action, and life. I appreciate the dedication, insightfulness, and good humor that they have both brought to this exhibition and publication. This exhibition would not have been possible without the help of many people. In particular, in addition to each exhibiting artist, I would like to thank the following individuals and institutions who graciously agreed to lend works from their collection for the exhibition, helped with research, fabrication, and programming, and who provided images for this publica- tion: Deborah Bruguera from Studio Tania Bruguera; Amelia Hinojosa at Kurimanzutto, Mexico City; Leslie Tonkonow and Tyler Auwarter at Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York; Rachel Greer and Emily King at the Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University; Laurianne Ojo-Ohikuare; Ursula Davila-Villa and Chad Seelig at Alex- ander Gray Associates, New York; Patrick Armstrong at Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin; Alanna Gedgaudas from Jenny Holzer’s studio; Neal Benezra, Sandra S. Phillips, Corey Keller, Tina Garfinkel, Maria Naula, and Gretchen Sawatzki at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Megan Steinman from Suzanne Lacy’s studio; Celia Kitchell and Jessica Howard from Lynn Hershman Leeson’s studio; Andrew Sloat; Ed Gilbert and Shannon Trimble from Anglim Gilbert Gallery, San Francisco; Vanessa Blaikie and Joey Piziali from Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco; Joanna Górska from Galeria Rusz, Warsaw; Tim Caro Bruce; Lisa Fischman and

8 Bo K. Mompho at the Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Massachusetts; Jeanine Oleson; Catharine Clark at Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco; Michael Ahn at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York; Anne Pasternak at Creative Time, New York; Leah Rosenberg; Enar de Dios Rodriguez. This exhibition has created opportunities for institutional collabora- tion, and many thanks go to Courtney Fink and Valerie Imus at Southern Exposure, San Francisco for their participation in organizing two off-site interventions with Constance Hockaday and Jenifer K. Wofford in con- junction with the exhibition. I am grateful to the catalogue contributors Leila Grothe, director of curatorial affairs, 500 Capp Street, and assistant curator, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, and María del Carmen Carrión, director of public programs and research, Independent Curators International, New York. Their respective conversations with Courtney Fink, executive director of Southern Exposure, San Francisco and Meredith Johnson, curator and director of consulting at Creative Time, New York, illuminate the critical role of non-profit and alternative art spaces on the west and east coasts in commissioning ambitious public art projects and reconceptualizing the experience of engaging the public in artists’ work. I am also grateful to John Borruso for his thoughtful design in creating this important publication and to Morgan Peirce for her thoroughness and critical eye in editing the catalogue.

The Mills College Art Museum is lucky to have a strong exhibition and programming team. I am indebted to the museum’s staff, Stacie Daniels and Maysoun Wazwaz, for their valuable input, creativity, and ability to manage the multitude of tasks and details required to success- fully realize an exhibition and publication of this scope. The skills of our talented art preparators, Sean Howe and Joe Melamed, ensured a smooth and beautiful installation. An exhibition and publication of this scope would not have been pos- sible without the generosity of the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation. Many thanks go to Carlie Wilmans and the foundation for supporting this project. The Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation has, since its inception, been especially well attuned to cross-disciplinary artistic activity, in which the performative and the visual meet. The foundation’s financial contribution helps make a significant impact by bringing awareness to the important history of women’s public art practices.

9

Whose Public Space Where? Notes on the Politics of Public Works, Private Interests, and the Spaces in Between Christian L. Frock

when considering artists interventions in public space, the limits on public expression come into sharp focus, particularly if we also consider the recent backlash against protests and the rising dominance of private interests in the public sphere in cities around the country. Images of police clashes come to mind, as do recent headlines for projects such as billionaire Barry Diller’s plans for Pier 55 in New York, a new public park planned with numerous restrictions over access (group reservations required, no political demonstrations allowed).1 In the larger scheme of things, these restrictions are about impeding individual autonomy in favor of privileging commerce or private wealth. Meanwhile corporate entities are intensely engaged in monetizing personal information (your data, your image, your images) for capital gain. With these shifts in mind, “public” and “private” become loaded phrases in contemporary life, alluding to shifting associations over time and a complex web of politics behind given meanings.

11 1 Inga Saffron, “America’s Billion- Each of the works presented in Public Works: Artists’ Interventions aires Are Turning Public Parks into 1970s–Now explores modes of possibility within the limitations placed Playgrounds for the Wealthy,” New Republic, February 2, 2015. http:// on public expression, often by challenging the contours of public space as www.newrepublic.com/article/120909/ defined by civic restrictions and private enterprise. These works also con- barry-dillers-pier-55-park-how-money- changing-city-parks sider how artists reclaim the public domain and explore new platforms for public dialog in the absence of physical gathering space. Some of these works demonstrate how art can impact public policy; all illuminate how art reflects public life while resisting the status quo.

Through temporary interventions, actions, and happenings, the artists featured in Public Works hold up a mirror to the social and economic forces that influence public expression, with a particular focus on truly significant public works that have often been small in scale, informal, autonomous, and frequently unsanctioned. This collection of work, presented primarily as documentation, reflects a range in the scale of gestures and explores the lasting impact of ephemeral interventions on cultural memory.

Of the more than twenty artists’ works considered here, all scrutinize unconventional platforms for expression, new models for public dialog, and wildly differing notions of public space. Several historical works pro- vide astonishingly prescient context for considering present day issues, while each of the contemporary works echoes the politics of earlier works. Together, the collection offers a compelling long view of tactical interven- tions associated with spatial justice and identity politics.

Gender plays an enormous role in considering the politics of pub- lic space and the body itself as a platform for disruption. Watershed moments in female identity politics have recently played out on the national stage, from Texas Senator Wendy Davis’ 2013 epic filibuster to block anti-abortion legislation to the phenomena of #YesAllWomen to NYU art student Emma Sulkowicz’s rape protest made manifest in Carry that Weight (2014–2015). [Fig. 1–3] These unflinching embodiments of female identity have delved into notions of the Internet as a public space, sparking rigorous national dialog. Not all of the work in Public Works confronts gender overtly, though all of the artists identify as women—in itself, gender is highly politicized terrain in a moment of evolved public Fig. 1 Emma Sulcowicz, Carry That dialog on female identity, from technology executive Sheryl Sandberg’s Weight, 2014 bestselling book Lean In to actress Laverne Cox’s open advocacy for

Fig. 2 Senator Wendy Davis filibuster- LGBTQ culture and the transgender community. At the time of this ing in the Texas senate chamber, 2013 writing, the world is still actively responding to the very public transition

12 13

2 Neal J. Riley, “Endgame: S. F. police shut down sidewalk chess,” San Fran- cisco Chronicle, September 17, 2013. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/ Endgame-S-F-police-shut-down- sidewalk-chess-4823376.php

3 As relayed to the author via Face- book message by Wilson’s collaborator and partner Christopher Statton.

4 Rachel Swan, “Is Oakland’s new crowd control measure workable?” San Francisco Chronicle, May 26, 2015. http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/arti- cle/Is-Oakland-s-new-crowd-control- measure-workable-6287788.php?t=cdd7 b14e59f294ee0d&cmpid=fb-premium

of former Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner and her recent debut as Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair. [Fig. 4] It is a particularly timely moment to consider the implications of gender and female identity in popular culture and public space. But, first, where do we find public space? No, really­­—I’m asking. With so many shifts in public space, it can be hard to discern when and where we are at liberty to gather or protest or even rest. Throughout the Bay Area, where this exhibition originates, most “public space” (read: in the open air) is regulated by laws that discourage gathering, protesting, or even so much as lingering.

Fig. 3 Screenshots from Twitter Sidewalks might be public space, except that they are often regulated #YesAllWomen, 2015 by ordinances that limit actually gathering. In 2013, San Francisco police

Fig. 4 Annie Leibovitz, Vanity Fair halted the decades old tradition of sidewalk chess games along Market cover featuring Caitlyn Jenner, 2015 Street, saying that players could only return if a local business paid for

16 the city permit.2 No one has. Also in San Francisco and throughout the US, “sit-lie” laws prohibit sitting or lying in public space, mostly as puni- tive measures against homelessness, but it can apply to anyone, artists included. Case in point: San Francisco artist Megan Wilson was once taken into custody for violating “sit-lie” while working on a mural for Clarion Alley Mural Project.3

Streets might be public space, except that they aren’t either. In Oakland, Mayor Libby Schaaf has recently instituted a curfew and placed a ban on nighttime protests held without proper city permits. You can apply for a permit to organize a protest, but there is a 30-day processing period and a $300 fee.4 As one might imagine, this does not lend itself well to pro- test. Democracy, including the right to object in public space, now comes at a cost.

What other spaces might be public? Wikipedia, the contentious crowd managed public forum, suggests this: “A public space is a social space that is generally open and accessible to people.” OK. But then, what is a social space? Back to the People’s Republic of Wikipedia, which suggests: “A social space is physical or virtual space such as a social center, online social media, or a gathering place where people gather and interact.” So, deducing from the two, public space is accessible space for gathering and interacting, in the built environment and online.

Though the Internet is a predominantly corporate entity, with undeni- ably limited access among other sticking points, it still lends itself well to public expression through unconventional channels. One favored example draws from when presidential candidate elect Mitt Romney referenced “binders full of women” during a 2012 presidential debate and his guff became a meme overnight. [Fig. 5] Thousands posted satiri- cal commentary on Amazon reviews for Avery office binders, quietly and humorously subverting corporate space to create a kind of tongue- in-cheek Yelp review for human behavior. It was an oddly public space forged from a commercial space and a wonderfully spontaneous example of culture jamming in the age of the Internet. It was also a perfect example of what political satirist Jon Stewart has called “crowd correct- ing,” when a dispersed community responds to the same issue simul- taneously online—this in essence, is also how Wikipedia functions to provide a (somewhat) democratized historical record on the web. It is a complicated paradigm shift: one in which public space is carved out of

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18 5 Robert Ayers, “The NEA Four,” Franklin Furnace, last modified April 14, 2004, http://www.franklinfurnace. org/research/essays/nea4/ayers.html

predominantly private space. While the space is public by virtue of acces- sibility and participation, it is not entirely accessible, or for that matter, truly public.

Fig. 5 Selections from more than 1,600 This kind of subversion—of publicizing private spaces for public expres- reviews posted on Amazon’s product sion—runs a thread through Public Works. Karen Finley’s 1-900-ALL- page for Avery Durable View Binder KAREN (1998) was a widely accessible telephone-based performance that with 2-Inch Slant Ring, after presiden- tial candidate and former governor of co-opted the pay-to-call 1-900 phone service, on the cusp of mobile tele- Massachusetts Mitt Romney responded phone ubiquity. [Fig. 6] It experimented with exposing day-to-day private to a question about pay equity with a comment about requesting “binders full musings as public performance. With commentary ranging in topic from of women.” The phrase immediately news headlines to personal reflections on motherhood, Finley inventively went viral, spawning Tumblr pages, leveraged her work before a national audience prior to the ease of the Inter- tweets, including a parody Romney Twitter account with more than 30,000 net. In the provocative promotional ads shot by documentary filmmaker followers, a Facebook fan page with and portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Finley appears more than 274,000 likes and a Wikipe- dia entry titled “Binders full of women.” naked, wrapped around a pay phone, unmistakably delivering a divine kiss- Amazon users posted thousands of off to the culture wars of the 1990s, initiated when her NEA grant was satirical reviews—when marked by revoked along with those of Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Tim Miller, other users as ‘helpful’ these reviews 5 were moved to the top of the page and, on the basis of violating ‘general decency standards.’ It was a debate for as a result, are still accessible online as the ages, focused on freedom of expression, government funding, and the this book goes to publication. http:// www.amazon.com/Avery-Durable- essential role of artists’ provocations to think about the world around us. Binder-11-Inch-17032/product- The artists filed suit and eventually won their case, and shortly thereafter, reviews/B001B0CTMU/ref=cm_cr_dp_ under pressure from Congress, the NEA also ceased funding for individual qt_hist_one?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOn eStar&showViewpoints=02 artists. As historic controversies go, this was a watershed moment in the move away from public funds for the arts towards our present day depen- Fig. 6 Karen Finley, 1-900-ALL- KAREN matchbook, 1998. Collection dence upon private wealth, but 1-900-ALL-KAREN didn’t set the stage for of Mills College Art Museum publicizing private space, it built upon previous examples.

19 6 Tanya Zimbardo, “Receipt of One precedent for Finley’s intervention is found in Lynn Hershman Delivery: Windows by Eleanor Cop- Leeson’s The Dante Hotel (1973–1974), wherein the artist rented a North pola” SFMOMA Open Space, January 25, 2013. http://openspace.sfmoma. Beach SRO hotel room to stage an immersive installation based on a org/2013/01/receipt-of-delivery29/ fictional narrative. [Fig. 7] Visitors could ask for the key 24 hours a day

7 Peter Cavagnero, “Q & A: Bon- to navigate the installation in private, creating a peculiar private dynamic nie Ora Sherk and the performance within a variously private-turned-public space. In a second rented room, of being,” BAM/PFA Blook, June 12, Eleanor Coppola staged a living tableaux by inviting poet Tony Dingman 2012. http://blook.bampfa.berkeley. edu/2012/06/q-a-bonnie-ora-sherk- to occupy the room during the exhibition and documenting the shift in and-the-performance-of-being.html his living arrangement with Polaroids.6

Prior to these works, Bonnie Ora Sherk staged the performance series Sitting Still (1970) in various public thoroughfares around San Fran- cisco, including the Financial District, the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco Zoo. [see cover image] “I found an unusual environment,” she has said of the first performance in a trash strewn, waterlogged con- struction area of the Army Street Freeway interchange. “When I saw this site, I immediately realized that this was a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate a how a seated human figure could transform the environ- ment simply by being there.”7 These early works provide us with a lot of context for modes of occu- pying public space—they also show us how much has shifted. While Finley’s work anticipated the centrality of technology—mobile phones, digital messages—as a kind of public social space with private frame- works, the works of Hershman Leeson and Sherk foreshadowed dramatic limitations in how we might occupy public spaces and what spaces would even be available for intervention. Between the astronomical shifts in access to affordable space in San Francisco and the dramatically restricted possibilities for so much as sitting in heavily regulated spaces, it is hard to imagine that either of these early works could even be realized in the same do-it-yourself (DIY) style today. Today, public space is not, as one might suspect, defined by ‘publicness,’ or rather by being owned by the public, or even by the commons, which (again with the Wiki) is defined as “the cultural or natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air or water, resources held in common, not owned privately.”

Fig. 7 Lynn Hershman Leeson, Dante Except, of course, that air and water are also frequently privatized Hotel Receipt, from The Dante Hotel, 1973–1974. Courtesy the artist and resources. Air rights are defined as development rights in real estate, Anglim Gilbert Gallery allowing property owners the right to use and develop the space above a

20 21 22 8 Wikipedia. “Air Rights.” Accessed property.8 Amy Balkin’s, Public Smog (2004–ongoing), considers air rights June 13, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/ inversely through the development of a public park in the atmosphere wiki/Air_rights created through emissions trading and situated in “the unfixed public 9 Amy Balkin, Public Smog website. airspace above the region where offsets are purchased and withheld from Accessed June 13, 2015. http://www. 9 publicsmog.org/ use.” [Fig. 8] It is an extensive project, realized primarily online through documentation and explanatory text—simultaneously occupying invisible 10 Kevin Ohannessian, “Nestle still airspace and the ether of the Internet. bottling water from California dur- ing drought,” Tech Times, July 22, And as for water as a public resource, look to Nestlé, still bottling water 2014. http://www.techtimes.com/ articles/10906/20140722/nestle-still- during one of the worst droughts on California record from land leased bottling-water-from-california-during- from the Morongo Band of Mission Indians.10 Another example: In 2014 drought.htm the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department cut off services to an esti- 11 Natasha Culzac, “Detroit has cut mated 30,000 households, schools, and businesses who were behind on off the water supply to thousands of their monthly payments.11 Still another precedent was set in 2013 when residents—and now activists have taken their fight to the UN,” The Indepen- billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla blocked public access to Mar- dent, June 23, 2014. http://www.inde- tin’s Beach after purchasing beachfront property, despite California’s con- pendent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ detroit-cuts-off-water-to-thousands- stitutional assurance that beachfront property owners shall not prevent of-residents-as-activists-plead-with- the public from accessing beaches.12 un-for-help-with-human-rights- abuse-9556171.html Marie Lorenz’s participatory project, Tide and Current Taxi (2005–

12 Peter Fimrite, “Surfers lose fight ongoing), explores the complexities of accessing public waterways around to access Half Moon Bay Beach,” San New York. Dictated by the flow of the tide, Lorenz’s project offers a water Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 2013. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/ Surfers-lose-fight-to-access-Half- Moon-Bay-beach-4926919.php

Fig. 8 Amy Balkin, Public Smog, 2004–ongoing. Courtesy the artist. See publicsmog.org

Fig. 9 Occupy Wall Street, New York City, 2011

23 Fig. 10 Jenny Holzer, Inflammatory Essays, Installation in New York City, 1979–1982. Courtesy the artist and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

26 13 Spur Report, “Secrets of San Fran- taxi service to participants who come aboard for the purpose of explora- cisco,” last modified January 1, 2009. tion; given the flow of the currents, participants can dictate departure http://www.spur.org/publications/spur- report/2009-01-01/secrets-san-francisco locations, but little else in terms of route or timing. Voyages have explored spaces that were only accessible by boat, such as water-bound wrecks and 14 Socket Site, “Little-Known Public Open Spaces Could be Made Private,” abandoned spaces, challenging notions of public access through Lorenz’s last modified January 21, 2015. http:// private enterprise. www.socketsite.com/archives/2015/01/ little-known-public-open-spaces-soon- So, in essence, the spaces and resources we consider public aren’t actu- history.html ally public at all. What remains? 15 Maggs Ltd., “Inflammatory Essays,” accessed June 13, 2015. http:// Plazas and parks might be public space, except that they aren’t. Plazas www.maggs.com/departments/counter_ and parks are increasingly privately owned. This was illuminated dur- culture/authors/holzer/inflammatory- essays/133593/ ing Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park, with the politics of “POPOS” (privately owned public open spaces), in which the owners forcefully disbanded peaceful assembly by imposing operating hours and cleaning

times, among other tactics. [Fig. 9] The concept of POPOS was devel- oped in the late 1960s to incentivize developers to avoid excess real estate density and allow spaces for public gathering—there are more than fifty POPOS scattered throughout San Francisco, in theory making up for the absence of green space downtown, though many barely function as public spaces and more often serve the interests of building occupants.13 This year, a proposed amendment to city policy could allow developers to pay a one-time fee in lieu of providing public space—it’s likely that it will pass, and inevitably signal the end of San Francisco’s POPOS given market rate real estate values.14 These are but a few ways in which the presence of private develop- ment overwhelms the possibilities for public space, and in turn public expression; there are also numerous ways in which artists have pushed back against pervasive inscription of private interests on public life. Jenny Holzer’s historically significant Inflammatory Essays (1979–1982), inspired by readings focused on alienation, freedom, and capitalism by Emma Goldman, Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Tse-Tung, and Leon Trotsky, among others, were wheat-pasted on the streets of New York. Situated in different venues throughout the city, Holzer has spoken of selecting different messages for different neighborhoods—“It was fun to put particularly frightening ones uptown.”15 [Fig. 10] Recent works by Candy Chang expand on these types of gestures

Fig. 11 Candy Chang, I Wish This Was, through contemporary means. Chang’s I Wish This Was (2010–ongoing) 2010–ongoing. Courtesy the artist borrows from the sticker slaps of graffiti culture to reimagine the function

27 16 Candy Chang’s website, “I Wish of standard issue perfunctory “Hello, My Name is . . . ” stickers for public This Was,” accessed June 13, 2015. expression. [Fig. 11] Chang’s version borrows the red and white aesthetic http://candychang.com/i-wish-this-was/ and instead invites participants to reimagine their neighborhoods with 17 Anti-Eviction Mapping Project the prompt, “I wish this was . . . ” Boxes of stickers and pens were left in website, accessed June 13, 2015. http:// www.antievictionmap.squarespace.com/ public spaces and participants were encouraged to designate the function of derelict or abandoned spaces in their own communities.16 Initiated in 2010, in post-Katrina New Orleans, Chang envisioned the project as a way to generate casual conversations throughout the city; a later project titled Neighborland (2011) facilitates collaboration between community members and neighborhood organizations to develop new models of civic engagement.

Bridging these types of ideas—public expression and community engagement—with the capacities of the Internet has yielded radical new models of impactful interventions, particularly in the present moment in the San Francisco Bay Area where private interests are rapidly reshaping the city. In recent years, the region has seen the boom of the technology sector, which has impacted all aspects of public life, including explosions in property values, rapid gentrification, shrinking diversity demographics, the displacement of community organizations, artists, galleries, and art spaces, all in very large numbers.

For those who take the fight online, the Internet has offered a power- ful tool to resist these shifts and to shine a light on the effects of wealth disparity. The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project (AMP), spearheaded by a group of activists including artist Erin McElroy, has offered brilliant tactical resistance in the form of data mapping and a digital storytelling archive online. [Fig. 12] AMP’s work is regularly referenced in media coverage about rapid changes in the city. The project includes maps of no-fault evictions that triangulate details about gentrification in relation to the new private shuttle buses operating between San Francisco neigh- borhoods and Silicon Valley, among other data renderings.17

These private shuttles—initially stark white and enormous, absent of branding—have served as potent symbols of displacement in larger conversations focused on the pervasive effects of neoliberalism in a city Fig. 12 Anti-Eviction Mapping once recognized for community organizing and grassroots social justice. Project, Ellis Act Evictions 1/1/1997– The now infamous “Google Bus Protests” led by anonymous artists 7/30/2014, screenshot detail from online interactive data map. Courtesy and activists propelled international attention to the changes taking Anti-Eviction Mapping Project place in the city and prompted significant conversations about public

28 29 30 resources and spatial justice, an idea illustrated in the work of geogra- pher David Harvey in considering how inequity is cast in city policies and urban planning. Fig. 13 Stephanie Syjuco public At the height of these tensions in San Francisco, Stephanie Syjuco Facebook Album “Bedazzle a Tech Bus (I Mock Up Your Ideas),” featur- created Ultimate Vision (Dazzle Camouflage) (2013), an unsolicited ing 62 images created in collaboration project proposal for Google to wrap its buses in black and white “razzle with other Facebook users, shown here dazzle” patterning, after the World War I-era design intended to obscure (left to right, from the top): Ulrika Andersson “LET IT LEAK! (Snowden the visibility of battle ships at sea. This tongue-in-cheek proposal simul- / Manning / Assange),” Stephanie taneously acknowledges the absurdity of attempting to obscure the Syjuco “Public Comfort,” Gareth Spor “I ♥ Puppies,” Jon Gourley “Gringo elephant in the room, while seeking to prompt an internal corporate dia- Bus,” Stephanie Syjuco: “I Won,” Brion log about social responsibility within a boom. Whether or not Ultimate Nuda Rosch “MY OTHER CAR IS Vision was ever considered by anyone in Silicon Valley is unclear, though A GOOGLE BUS,” Collin McKelvey “Pro-Bono Ad Campaign for Google Syjuco’s proposal was later the basis for a larger culture-jamming proj- Bus (Bing),” Stephanie Syjuco “The ect that prompted significant community dialog online. When Mission Dark Arts (Black Metal Genentech)” https://www.facebook.com/stephanie. Local, a neighborhood media organization in San Francisco’s Mission syjuco/media_set?set=a.1015182156856 District, ground zero for displacement in the city, ran a contest inviting 5969.1073741875.687895968&type=3 artists to create proposals to “bedazzle” the tech buses for no remunera-

Fig. 14 Detail of Twitter data tion, the hazy promise of recognition and the even hazier promise of a rendering for #BlacklivesMatter, modest cash prize, Syjuco issued an open call on Facebook to facilitate #ICantBreathe, #HandsUpDontShoot, December 5, 2014. Courtesy of designs for the competition based on community response to the buses. CartoDB and SRogers More than sixty resulting designs, executed by instruction, ran the gamut

31 from barbed humor to open hostility, and prompted a significant and candid conversation about how the tech sector has impacted public life. [Fig. 13] Questions of visibility and invisibility, such as those central to Syjuco’s proposal, are the paramount questions of the time we live in, specifi- cally in relation to social media’s global reach and technology’s pervasive involvement in our private lives. The existence of these issues highlights a cultural shift in thinking about the Internet as a public social space, the effects of public exposure online, and Internet popularity as a measure of public interest. How we think about public space has changed in tandem with the rise of the Internet as a second public realm. For all its flaws, it presents a new measure of democracy illustrated in online data render- ing, evident in numerous examples recently, from the call for marriage Fig. 15 Screenshot from Twitter, equality by Facebook users who symbolically changed profile images to members of BlackOUT Collective on Market Street, San Francisco, demonstrate support, to the Twitter geo-data rendering of hashtags in use May 21, 2015 immediately following the non-indictment verdict in the killing of Eric

32 Garner (#BlackLivesMatter, #ICantBreathe, #NoJusticeNoPeace), to #JeSuisCharlie and the contentious dialog it engendered, which spurred #JeNeSuisCharlie and #JeSuisAhmed, among others. [Fig. 14]

A recent protest organized by the BlackOut Collective in San Francisco focused on police brutality against black women—participants took to the streets of the Financial District topless and distributed images online, to bring greater visibility to an issue that has been overlooked in the larger conversation about racial justice. It was a bold tactical gesture, forcing people on the street and those online to confront black women’s bodies in protest—when the images were quietly censored on social media, as nudity often is, supporters distributed drawings and vector graphics, effec- tively “hacking” the limitations of online media. [Fig. 15] The Internet’s capacity for bringing visibility to otherwise unseen debates has given rise to unprecedented levels of public dialogue on social issues that might not otherwise register the same impact in traditional media—when the work is censored, this becomes a story in itself, extending the life of the dialog.

“Hacking” workarounds to the inherent limitations of public dialog is reflected in a number of the tactical gestures inPublic Works. The ongoing work of Laurie Jo Reynolds and a cohort of activists organized as Tamms Year Ten directly focuses on tactically publicizing the humanity of prison- ers in solitary confinement as actions to call for prison reform. [Fig. 16–17] Photo Requests from Solitary (2013), a collaboration between Reynolds, Tamms Year Ten, Jeanine Oleson, and Jean Casella/Solitary Watch, is a participatory project that demonstrates the human aspects of prisoners deemed “the worst of the worst,” those isolated in solitary confinement 23 hours a day. The project is also an exercise in radical empathy that exposes the interior lives of people behind walls and forges connections between life inside and outside of prison. Prisoners described detailed personal requests for images they would like to live with in their sparse surround- ings, and professional photographers aim to fulfill these requests. The image requests speak to the impact of sensory deprivation, while the larger project questions the justice of such practices. The work represents well in the media and on social networks, thereby fabricating publicity for unseen members of society barred from public life.

Looking at historical works in the context of contemporary works makes it clear that many of the same issues that artists have struggled with in regards to freedom of expression, public space, and private enterprise have

33 been in place for a long time. The embedded challenges expressed in these works are not new, but the modes of engagement are. The possibilities for sidestepping the limitations of public space have simultaneously narrowed and multiplied, especially considering the prevalence of social spaces online as platforms for public engagement. Simultaneously, the histori- cal works considered in Public Works offer tactical strategies for navigating newer boundaries on public expression. Even as autonomy has been hindered by so many restrictions in the built environment—on the sidewalks and in the streets—the Internet has offered a new quasi-public platform for public works by virtue of visibility before a potential global audience. It isn’t public space in the traditional sense, in terms of being free from corporate interests or government imposition, but maybe no such space ever was. Public works exist in the public realm by virtue of exposure; they are not defined by permanence or objects or architecture. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that they matter for as long as they are remembered, for the ways in which they intervene in public consciousness. They exist in the nebulous space of collective public memory—the only space that lasts, for those who seek it out.

Fig. 16 Laurie Jo Reynolds, Myself Parallel to this there is always the possibility of intervention, of manipu- with a Blue Sky—Robert S. from Photo lating the spaces before us, to create a new public platform where there Requests from Solitary, 2011. Several once was none. men asked for photos of themselves, taken from their online Department of Corrections photos, to give to their fam- ilies. Robert wanted his picture matched with an alternate background. He wrote, “If you can place my picture on another background, nothing too much please. Something simple like a blue sky with clouds or a sunset in the distance would be fine.” Robert also said, “I want to extend my love to you, for you, as you have already done for me. Because genuine, authentic true love is when you do for others just because you can, and you hold no preconceived notion that you will be getting anything in return.” Courtesy the artist and Tamms Year Ten

Fig. 17 Mothers of Tamms prisoners participate in Tamms Year Ten “I am a Mom” march to American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employ- ees, April 4, 2012, James R. Thompson Center, Chicago, IL. Courtesy of Tamms Year Ten

34 35

Public Address: Bay Area Performances, Temporary Installations, and Nomadic Projects Tanya Zimbardo

a group of us gather at the corner plaza of 24th and Mission streets in San Francisco, taking turns to step up and speak freely for one minute. Several arts organizations across the country and internationally have coordinated similar open-mic events as public acts of solidarity with artist Tania Bruguera, who has been repeatedly detained and harassed by the Cuban authorities since she attempted a restaging of her performance Tatlin’s Whisper #6 (Havana Version) (2009) [see pages 80–81] from the 2009 Havana Biennial, in a different charged context, the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana on December 30, 2014. Some of the participants in San Francisco address the importance of free speech, while others read sections from Bruguera’s Manifesto on Art- ists’ Rights (2012).1 One artist pulls out a notebook and reads a list of life-affirming words from text-based posters by Susan O’Malley [see pages 108–109], whose recent and sudden passing has stunned the Bay Area community. In considering the perseverance that making work in

37 1 Documented online through the the public sphere often necessitates, the internal wisdom of You Made the use of Tania Bruguera’s social media Right Choices, You Made the Right Mistakes comes to mind. This senti- #YoTambienExijo (#IAlsoDemand), this event held in San Francisco on ment, originally offered by a young woman O’Malley approached on the April 13, 2015 was initiated by the street in Berkeley, appeared in the artist’s community-authored Advice private foundation Kadist SF. from My 80-Year-Old Self (2014–2015). [Fig. 2] Bruguera and O’Malley 2 The work has been restaged sev- each made their work a platform to allow others to be heard. eral times locally and nationally, most recently as “What Matters to Us: A Several of the East Coast-based artists in the survey Public Works: Artists’ Reenactment of Anna Halprin’s Blank Placard Dance” organized by the Tam- Interventions 1970s–Now reframe the outdoor sites, like plazas and parks, pala Institute on May 16, 2015. that are associated with various forms of public gathering. Armed with a bullhorn, Sharon Hayes arrives in the parks of Lower Manhattan to deliver 3 Ross, Janice, Anna Halprin: Experi- ence as Dance. (Berkeley: University of a letter to an anonymous lover, speaking to the ways in which war does and California Press, 2007), 289. doesn’t interrupt our daily lives [see pages 96–97]. Emily Jacir reports on her daily appearances and observations of the main square in Linz, Austria captured by a webcam [see pages 102–103]. Coco Fusco unpacks the his- tory of political rallies in Plaza de la Revolución, chronicling the ongoing government suppression of unauthorized activity and any speech that might be perceived socially dangerous, which underscores the precise reasons why an audience cannot gather at this site [see pages 92–93].

In another recent performance restaged in San Francisco’s Mission district, an assembled group marches through the streets holding blank white picket signs. Passersby suggest messages for the signs by filling out Post-its, which accumulate on the backsides of each placard as the group moves through the streets. Anna Halprin’s Blank Placard Dance (1967) was born out of the climate of protest that defined the late sixties and continues to resonate today.2 [Fig. 3] In order not to constitute a demonstration as defined by law, Halprin and originally the members of her San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop stayed the requisite ten feet apart, a “performed state- ment about both those who protested through public demonstration and institutional practices that controlled them” as described by dance historian Janice Ross.3 Indeed, many of Halprin’s dancers had been arrested during

Fig. 1 Bonnie Ora Sherk, From the previous anti-war protests. The social movements of the sixties and seven- Sitting Still Series—Golden Gate Bridge, ties directly informed the work of many women artists. 1970. Courtesy the artist The artists featured in Public Works often demonstrate a commitment Fig. 2 Susan O’Malley, Less Internet More Love, from Advice From My to a locality. It is worth noting that Bay Area women artists in particular, 80-Year-Old Self, 2015. Mural at Bob from a broad spectrum of media, all began exploring the potential of out- McGee's Machining Co., Inc., San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley. Courtesy Kala door sites and non-art venues in the seventies, opening up the parameters Art Institute of art and the divisions between art and life. Moreover, there is an ongoing

38 legacy of artists developing significant opportunities for their peers through curatorial projects. We can think of this region, the community in which Mills College belongs, as a case study for how working in the public arena developed since the 1970s, through artist-led and institutional initiatives in addition to support from city arts commission agencies. Several artists in Public Works are based here or created major pieces here. A concentration of academic programs historically has and continues to draw artists to the area, but also fosters an exploration of new genres and critical discourse. The following brief overview of temporary and often dialogic work in the Bay Area includes not only what might be considered interventionist strat- egies, but a broader context of environmental installations, performance

39 4 Linda Mary Montano, “Art on the actions, and socially engaged projects by contemporaries of the two genera- Streets,” Linda Mary Montano (blog), tions of conceptual artists represented in the exhibition. Both independent March 2, 2010. http://lindamarymon- tano.blogspot.com/2012/03/art-on- initiatives and the efforts of arts organizations have expanded our notions streets.html of how art is produced in public, moving beyond longstanding and cel-

5 Linda Frye Burnham, “Between the ebrated traditions of outdoor sculpture, monuments, and murals. Diaspora and the Crinoline: An Inter- view with Bonnie Sherk” High Perfor- personal expressions, performance actions mance, Fall 1981, 50. In the 1970s, four unsanctioned and solitary performances risked provok- 6 Bonnie Ora Sherk, email to the author and Christian L. Frock, April ing the authorities at the Golden Gate Bridge: 25, 2015. Sherk / Living Life Frames, Inc. has developed A Living Library, 1970: Bonnie Ora Sherk sits quietly in a chair on the bridge’s side described as a system for place-making and ecological change, which includes walk facing the traffic. [Fig. 1] educational ‘Think Parks’ in New York, and in San Francisco in Chinatown and 1972: Exuberant in a blue prom dress, Linda Mary Montano the neighborhoods framed within the appears as her persona, Chicken Woman, dancing to Vivaldi’s Four underground creek watershed such as Seasons in honor of individuals who ended their lives at the site. Bernal Heights and the Excelsior, and a proposal for an Islais Creek Watershed Gateways & Interconnected Watershed 1975: Jill Scott and an assistant climb up the bridge’s steel pylons, Communities, incorporating walks and where the artist is left tied to one of the girders until security guards interactive digital technologies. order her down at sunset.

7 See Museum of Arte Útil, “About,” accessed May 22, 2015. http:// 1978: Roberta Breitmore, a fictional character performed by Lynn museumarteutil.net/about/ Hershman, contemplates and escapes her scripted fate of suicide.

It took Scott two hours to convince the officials that her action was only an artwork. For Montano, it was the first time she considered the potential limits and ethical responsibilities of performing on the street. Looking back on her experience with the police escort, she became “introduced to institutional, legal and later academic boundaries and responsibilities. Simply put, [she] stopped being “free”.”4 These four pieces inserted the presence of the artist, the figure of a woman, into this highly-monitored setting.

Sherk reflected on her Sitting Still Series, which additionally occupied other locations in San Francisco. “At that time I was feeling very much like an object on view, and the pieces were about female isolation and loneliness and were very personal expressions, although they didn’t nec- essarily appear to be that way. On an obvious level I was exploring how a seated human figure can transform an environment.”5 The artist has Fig. 3 Anna Halprin, Blank Placard Dance, 1967, San Francisco. Courtesy often spoken of the significance of thinking back on the earlier Sitting the artist Still I [see cover] as facing what would become her future—she would

40 transform the area underneath the then-recently built San Francisco freeway interchange into the alternative space known as Crossroads Community (the farm) (1974–1987). Gazing toward this overpass ramp construction, she sits in a formal gown in the groundwater from the Islais Creek Watershed, a geographic area of focus for several current and long-term projects associated with A Living Library (1981–ongo- ing), her multifaceted model for art and environmental education.6 In a serendipitous outdoor encounter of two artists in Public Works, one of the activist posters on the climate crisis (Defend Our Mother, 2014) by Favianna Rodriguez [see pages 114–115] was wheat-pasted beneath the freeway interchange at Cesar Chavez and Potrero, across the way from the transitional area where Sherk once developed an intergenerational working farm and community theater complex she co-founded with Jack Wickert. The Farm was a “space hijack,” to borrow the term categoriz- ing this project, and others, by the Museum of Arte Útil (Museum of Useful Art), an initiative of Bruguera.7 In addition to performing a number of outdoor feminist body actions (including Strung, 1975) in the Bay Area and beyond, Scott also curated

41 42 8 Jill Scott, Skype conversation with exhibitions, both independently and as director of the San Francisco non- the artist, July 16, 2014. profit Site, Cite, Sight, Inc. (formerly Site, 1976–1982) during its last two 9 Lynn Hershman and Eleanor years of operation. The Australian artist observed that with the emer- Coppola independently co-organized gence of conceptual art, performance, and artist-run spaces in the 1970s, The Dante Hotel (1973–1974) in a residen- tial hotel in North Beach. Visitors could “artists became the context providers and that transition was important. enter the building 24-hours a day, sign in We were not waiting for the art establishment to have our work seen.”8 at the front desk, and receive keys to their respective site-specific installations in two Conceptual art had emphasized the primacy of experience over objects, rooms. A virtual recreation of the Dante while feminist art addressed the lived experience of women and empow- Hotel within the multi-user platform of ered communities. Together, the approaches informed the growing trend Second Life provides the ‘museum’ setting for Hershman Leeson’s digital reworking of proposing new uses for art in society by addressing public life. of her archive Life Squared (2006–ongo- ing) developed in collaboration with Roberta Breitmore first arrived in San Francisco in the summer of 1975, Stanford Humanities Lab. checking into the Dante Hotel [see Hershman Leeson, pages 98–99] in 10 From 1975 to 1978, The Floating North Beach before moving to a singles rooming house, Bakers Acres, Museum sponsored solo presentations by which was located across the street from Hershman’s residence.9 The Eleanor Antin, Terry Fox, Paul Cotton, Michael Asher, Peter d’Agostino, Terry public was invited to see Roberta’s room during visiting hours in conjunc- Fox, Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton tion with Lynn Hershman is not Roberta Breitmore, Roberta Breitmore is not Harrison, Robert Harris, Hilaire Dufresne, Robert Janz, Douglas Davis, Lynn Hershman (1978) at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Peter Wiehl, Richard Lowenberg, and Francisco, as well as participate in a look-alike contest. Hershman (later the group exhibitions Global Space Hershman Leeson) performed this lonely character’s navigation through Invasion Phase I (1977), (H)errata (1977), and The Floating Museum: Global Space the real world, establishing her independence by obtaining various cre- Invasion Phase II (1978). dentials, including a driver’s license, credit cards, bank accounts, and

11 Founded in 1971, Motion: The medical and psychiatric records. The photographic documentation covers Women’s Performance Collective tran- Breitmore’s public and semi-public appearances at galleries, museums, sitioned from its core trio of Joya Cory, Suzanne Hellmuth, and Nina Wise to and parks to meet various men who had answered her newspaper ads. a coalition of women in the performing arts in January 1978. Motion: The Women’s Parallel to the Roberta Breitmore project, Hershman expanded upon Performance Connexion (July 25–August her interests in producing work by other artists in a range of nontradi- 8, 1978) presentation at SFMOMA, tional spaces through developing a museum without walls, The Floating guest curated by Jan Bright and Kathy 10 O’Dell, included performances by over Museum (1975–1978). The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art thirty members including Judith Barry, (SFMOMA) invited her to guest curate an exhibition about The Float- Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Barbara Hammer, Jill Scott, and Deborah Slater, ing Museum as part of SFMOMA’s initiative to showcase the new role among others. A defining aspect of Bay of alternative art spaces, which included a series of exhibitions from 1978 Area performance art in the seventies was through 1980 highlighting the Museum of Conceptual Art (1970–1984) the number of women artists who were dancers or came from dance backgrounds. and La Mamelle, Inc. (later Art Com, 1975–1999). The Floating Museum: Global Space Invasion Phase II (1978) adopted a decentralized curatorial Fig. 4 Marion Gray, Barbara Hammer’s Homage to Sappho, 1978. Photo of per- model, staging six guest-organized mini-exhibitions featuring over 150 formance in front of the San Francisco artists. One of the sections, a series of on-site and off-site performances Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco. Part of The Floating Museum: Global by the genre-defying Motion, marked a key moment within the history of Space Invasion Phase II. women and performance in the Bay Area.11 [Fig. 4]

43 12 Imin Yeh’s SpaceBi is documented Thirty years later, artists have continued to periodically address issues on her project website www.spacebi. of representation in the museum, and like Hershman, not only propose org (accessed May 25, 2015). Marc Mayer, curator of public programs, has alternatives outside, but within public institutions. For one year, Imin noted on the museum’s blog that the Yeh’s Space Bi (2011–2012) unofficially occupied the Asian Art Museum Artists’ Drawing Club series grew out of conversations with Yeh and other in San Francisco where the artist worked as an employee.She used an local artists while working on Taking individual artist grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission to Up Space. http://blog.asianart.org/blog/ obtain the museum’s high-level Jade Circle membership. The member- index.php/2013/03/15/artists-drawing- club-is-here/ ship included the benefit of the use of a private room and garden within this public institution. Yeh states, “I manipulated this privilege to exhibit 13 Judy Chicago, The Chicago Cor- ner (blog), January 2012. http://www. contemporary creative and critical projects that hoped to be a forum for judychicago.com/news/chicago-corner. alternative programming and dialog, re-imagining the use of this pub- php?id=10 lic space and collection and forging new connections between inherited

12 14 Todd Plummer, "Chicago is Every- cultural objects and creative practices today.” The overall success and where" http://www.interviewmagazine. energy around this project dovetailed with the museum’s own reassess- com/art/judy-chicago-chicago-in-la-a- butterfly-for-brooklyn#_ ment of its public programming and community engagement in relation to local contemporary artists. Museum curators, as co-conspirators with 15 Gyöngy Laky’s oral history is artists, have increasingly used live art and public dialogue initiatives as a published online as part of “Fiber Art: Visual Thinking and the Intelligent means to both complement as well as offset an institution’s collection or Hand,” Regional Oral History Office programmatic focus. of California, University of California Berkeley, 2003. http://archive.org/ stream/fiberartoral00lakyrich/fiberarto- off-site installations and events ral00lakyrich_djvu.txt The seventies not only witnessed more artists making work outside of the 16 Ibid. traditional gallery context, but also marked a shift in how a range of arts organizations began to recognize and encourage new directions in contem- porary art through sponsoring off-site or outdoor works as part of their exhibition program. One example, originally documented and recently revisited by the Oakland Museum of California, was Judy Chicago’s A Butterfly for Oakland(1974), a fireworks performance in the form of a pink butterfly outline on the shores of Lake Merritt. [Fig. 5] The piece was part of the off-site “environmental events” section of the museum’s other- wise object-based exhibition Public Sculpture/Urban Environment. “As the smoke cleared, for one moment, the world seemed more feminine,” noted Chicago.13 The challenges of being an apprentice in the male-dominated pyrotechnics field, namely sexual harassment, and securing support for this technically ambitious aspect of her acclaimed practice deterred Chicago from realizing another butterfly performance until nearly forty years later.14 Fig. 5 Judy Chicago, A Butterfly for Oakland, 1974, Lake Merritt, Oakland. Courtesy the artist and Artists Rights The eighties signaled a shift in new residency programs offering Society (ARS), New York opportunities for creating site-oriented works with the formation of

44 the Djerassi Resident Program (1979–ongoing), Capp Street Project (1983–ongoing), and Headlands Center for the Arts (1984–ongoing). For the inaugural exhibition Landmarks (1984) at the Headlands Center for the Arts, located in former military buildings of Fort Barry in Sausalito, Gyöngy Laky created three temporary works—Blue Piece, Yellow Piece, Red Piece—woven of colored surveyor’s tape and laid over three areas of the undulating hills of the Marin Headlands. [Fig. 6] Each piece was nearly half the size of a football field. Laky “planned to darn the land- scape like darning old socks,” to symbolically repair the coastal landscape marred by military preparations.15 While this visually dynamic work was relatively formalist, the two-person show was met with initial suspicion by some locals and national park officials. For the park service work- ers, the flagging tape in fact held loaded associations with clearing trees and building construction. One unhappy ranger dismantled a test piece. The Blue Piece was initially destroyed by vandalism and reinstalled. The lengthy conversations and debates with rangers and residents became an important part of Laky’s process, as she noted, “I felt that if I was going to be an artist working in the public, I needed to interact as much as I could. I needed to include people in the thinking and in the process.”16 The Headlands would primarily move forward with only temporary events in the surrounding environment.

45 Fig. 6 Gyöngy Laky, Red Piece, 1984, Marin Headlands. Courtesy the artist

17 Ellen Zweig’s performance at the walking tours, mobile shows, neighborhood exchange Giant Camera was followed by We Must All Be Explorers at the Victorian man- In another location within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, sion of the Falkirk Community Cultural Center in San Rafael. Both were pre- the camera obscura at San Francisco’s landmark Cliff House captures live sented by Ex(centric) Lady Travellers, moving images of its scenic environs. In She Traveled the Landscape (Giant a collaboration by Zweig, Dorit Cypis, Leeny Sack, and Leslie Thornton, as a Camera) (1986) Ellen Zweig used this device to frame the moving tableau touring exhibit on 19th century women of twelve performers in Victorian clothes moving outside the building who sought social independence and to her accompanying text-sound composition about the artist Marianne adventure through traveling alone. 17 North, who had spent a day drawing there in 1876. Comings & Goings: 2 18 Selections from Jeannene Przyblyski’s Backwards Journeys thru Lands End (2007) by the Bureau of Urban Secrets book and audio-storytelling project commissioned by Southern Exposure, ( Jeannene Przyblyski) offered a similar opportunity to travel through with the support of the Golden Gate time in that westernmost area of Lands End. Her project took the form National Parks Conservancy are avail- of a guided audio tour of the ruins of the 19th century era Sutro Baths able at https://www.tenlegs.com//jean- 18 nene/portfolio/7171/comings-goings- and coastal trails. At a time of rapid shifts in the built environment of 2-backwards-journeys-thru-lands-end. San Francisco, this type of work reinforces the value of history and the For a discussion of the Bureau of Urban Secrets and this commission, see Jeffrey physical experience of learning about a place. The nonprofit FOR-SITE Hou’s Insurgent Public Space: Guerilla Foundation and We Players, a “site-integrated-theatre” group, are among Urbanism and the Remaking of Contem- the organizations that have commissioned works at various cultural heri- porary Cities (Routledge: Oxon and New York, 2010). tage sites and historical landmarks in the past decade, primarily along the Golden Gate Recreation Area. 19 For example, a number of art- ists and collectives were highlighted From Linda Mary Montano’s (1975) to in the commissions for Ground Scores: Rose Mountain Walking Club Guided Tours of San Francisco Past and Sarah Hotchkiss and Carey Lin’s Stairwell’s (2012–ongoing), the idea of Personal organized by Valerie Imus for the walking tour as a participatory format has been adopted by a number the triennial Bay Area Now 5 (2008) at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San of contemporary artists, design collectives, and curators in this distinctly Francisco. walkable city.19 Kate Pocrass’ Mundane Journeys (2001–2008), comprised

20 For a resource on Temescal Amity of a public art hotline, books, posters, self-navigating audio tours, and Works and a number of key social prac- guided bus expeditions, encouraged careful looking, drawing attention to tice projects in the Bay Area and else- the often overlooked details of city neighborhoods and celebrating the where, see Ted Purves’ and Shane Aslan Selzer’s compendium What We Want Is everyday magic found there. Her Portable Exhibition Venues (2002) for the Free: Critical Exchanges in Recent Art. online Silent Gallery (2001–2003) advertised a phone number and list of December 2004: SUNY Series in appearances at art events in which one could find the artist and ask her Postmodern Culture. to show them “the exhibition”—works by other artists created to be worn inside Pocrass’s hat, jacket, pants, wallet, shoes, and Walkman.

Since the mid-1990s when the Internet first became public, there have been several alternative spaces that have reimagined exhibition practice and its relationship to the public sphere, including Harrell Fletcher and Fig. 7 Amy Balkin, Sell Us Your Liberty or We’ll Subcontract Your Death, 2008. Jon Rubin’s Gallery HERE (1993–1994), Steve Lambert’s (with Scott Courtesy the artist Vermiere, Annie Vought, Cynthia Yardley) Budget Gallery (1999–2005),

48 Marisa Jahn and Steve Shada’s Pond: Art, Activism, Ideas (2000–2009) and Christian L. Frock’s Invisible Venue (2005–ongoing). The experimen- tal film community has also convened in unexpected settings; Suki O’Kane, for example, directs the roving Illuminated Corridor (2005–ongoing), which brings together performance-based projectionists and musicians. In concert with a larger cultural movement supporting local and alterna- tive food systems, a number of artists have delved into public urban garden projects, addressing the private spaces of home gardens through public- facing or community-based social artworks. Jo Hanson’s garden snail escargot dinner events in 1981–1982 proposed an environmentally friendly solution to garden pest control, while Susanne Cockrell and Ted Purves redistributed backyard produce through a pushcart and storefront in in their Oakland neighborhood, a former orchard suburb in Temescal Amity Works (2004–2007).20 land use, technology, and covert operations

The military and corporate responsibility for environmental degradation is often deliberately obscured or hidden from view of the general public. A defining aspect of conceptually driven work in the Bay Area has been research-based projects that have traced this environmental issue at a time

49 50 21 Melinda Stone’s Sink or Swim was characterized by war and conflict. The layered history of Hunters Point presented with SF Cinematheque on Naval Shipyard, one of San Francisco’s worst toxic waste dumps and a July 7, 2001. For the full program, see: http://www.hi-beam.net/sos/ decaying former military site now used for artist studios and planned real estate development, was explored in Sink or Swim (2001) a cinema 22 For more information and a partici- pant list of the first and secondFree Soil event curated by filmmaker Melinda Stone, one of the co-founders of Bus Tour, see http://www.futurefarmers. The Center for Land Use Interpretation.21 The highest concentration com/tour2/ of Superfund toxic waste sites in the United States is located in Silicon

23 Judy Malloy’s public interventions Valley, primarily contaminated by chemicals from manufacturing com- included making “products” or “viruses” puter chips. Amy Franceschini, co-founder of Futurefarmers and the in the form of printed multiples incorpo- rating advertising slogans she collected international collaborative Free Soil, mapped these sites for her online from vendors, leaving them on tables at project, Gardening Superfund Sites (2005). The artist planted wildflowers restaurants, as free handouts at art events, and created Soil Sampling Shoes, a stealthy and wearable tool for gather- and distributing them by mail. ing evidence. Franceschini with Free Soil presented a roaming classroom in the South Bay inspired by the models of alternative education that historically formed in reaction to the confluence of the military-industrial complex and universities (Free Soil Bus Tours, 2006–2008).22 The Bureau of Inverse Technology sent a model plane (BIT Plane, 1997) on an infor- mation-gathering mission through the no-fly and no camera zone over the corporate research parks. Amy Balkin directly addressed the ongoing stronghold of the war machine and tech industry in the Bay Area in Sell Us Your Liberty or We’ll Subcontract Your Death (2008) by taking rubbings of the signage at corporate parks of entities involved with war and sur- veillance. [Fig. 7] Balkin’s work [see pages 78–79] seeks to make the legal processes of environmental justice struggles more public, from an audio tour of the legal battles to close toxic waste dumps in poor communities along the I-5 corridor in California (Invisible-5, 2006) to participatory public readings of publicly available but incredibly dense documents (Reading the IPCC Report, 2009).

Some projects have co-opted corporate identity to upend its promo- tional language, such as Judy Malloy’s infiltration of the tech community in the role of president of her own R&D companies including OK Genetic Engineering (1983–1985)23 or Mail Order Brides’ (Eliza Barrios, Reanne Estrada, Jenifer K. Wofford [see Wofford, pages 126–127]) performances as chief officers ofManananggoogle (2013–ongoing). One of many inter- ventions into existing or appropriated advertising vehicles developed by Fig. 8 Amanda Eicher in collabora- the Anti-Advertising Agency and its collaborators, PeopleProducts123 tion with Steve Lambert for the Anti- Advertising Agency, PeopleProducts123. (2007), by Amanda Eicher with Steve Lambert, exposes the relationship com, 2007. Courtesy the artist between laborers and food production. [Fig. 8] The downloadable labels

51 24 For more background on the project of “improved packaging” profile the individual workers behind various and to access the downloadable prints, products and produce using information gathered in part during Eicher’s please visit www.peopleproducts123.com 24 research in Colima, El Salvador. The Mexico-based Mejor Vida Corp. 25 I discuss Cherie Raciti’s site- (Minerva Cuevas) [see pages 84–85] uses its own shop-dropping tactics, specific wall works (1974–1977) in more depth in “Receipt of Delivery: including a downloadable barcode (Barcode, 1998–ongoing) that offers users Cherie Raciti’s Yerba Buena Works” a discount at San Francisco Safeway supermarkets among other stores. (September 9, 2012), SFMOMA Open Space (blog), http://openspace.sfmoma. org/2012/09/receipt-of-delivery11/ stories of displacement

26 Megan Wilson is a member of the The Yerba Buena Redevelopment Project in the South of Market area collective CAPITALISM IS OVER! If of San Francisco necessitated the destruction of numerous residential you want it, and one of the co-founders of the grassroots initiative Clarion Alley hotels and historic buildings, forcing thousands of individuals to move Mural Project (1992–ongoing) located without compensation. In 1977, the nonprofit 80 Langton Street (later off of the commercial strip of Valencia New Langton Arts, 1975–2009) highlighted the last of Cherie Raciti’s Street in the Mission, where she co- organized the protest performance remarkable body of site-specific and large-scale abstract paintings, which series Art Strikes Back (2000) prior to she had, for several years, been installing, without permission, directly on Better Homes and Gardens (2000). the wall fragments of the razed buildings in this neighborhood where she lived. [Fig. 9] Raciti knew that the lifespan of these works was determined by when these modern architectural ruins were slated to be torn down.25 By the early 1980s, San Francisco had settled the lawsuits that had stalled the Yerba Buena project for nearly a decade, during which many artists, like Raciti, lived and worked in the more affordable lofts and established artist-run spaces like 80 Langton Street. Both arts organizations and indi- vidual artists were engaged with making this history of displacement vis- ible. For example, in another work supported by New Langton Arts, Janet Silk and Ian Pollock’s Local 411 (1997), the artists enacted a ‘haunting’ of the public payphones of the neighboring SFMOMA, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Moscone Center. People would pick up a ringing pay- phone and engage in a private one-on-one conversation with a performer, who asked them about their opinions of the redevelopment and their own housing situation. The status as a public artwork was revealed only later in the exchange, when participants were invited to listen to recorded stories from displaced residents in the redevelopment zone and leave their own voicemail messages in response. Rent increases and evictions would impact citizens, including artists and art spaces, in various waves, especially during both the current and the first dot-com boom. In Better Homes and Gardens (2000) Megan Wil- Fig. 9 Cherie Raciti, Last Yerba Buena Wall, 1977, San Francisco. Courtesy son hand-painted 250 plywood signs that read “Home,” distributing the the artist placards to the homeless, residents, and shops in the Mission facing the

52 impact of displacement.26 [Fig. 10] She revisited and extended this proj- ect 15 years later with Christopher Statton in Better Homes and Gardens Today (2015), which encompassed community events and partnerships with nonprofits focused on homelessness. Artists and activists have made information on the Bay Area’s housing crisis more visible, by raising public awareness of the rising number of evictions and serial evictors and identifying the otherwise unpublished routes of the corporate luxury buses transporting tech workers to and from Silicon Valley [see Syjuco, pages 118–119]. This has coincided more broadly with a renewed atten- tion to artists’ rights, including compensation for labor and the adjunct faculty crisis, in the hopes of working toward a sustainable arts ecology in this real estate climate. community collaborations

Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art (1991), a symposium and retreat facilitated by the California College of the Arts and Crafts and Headlands Center for the Arts and convened at SFMOMA, brought together a stellar group of thirty national artists, arts professionals, land- scape architects and activists, to discuss a range of positions toward a recent history of public practice, identifying the need to develop language and criteria to evaluate and support this diverse field of production. It was

53

27 Suzanne Lacy, editor. Mapping the held in the midst of the Culture Wars, when government funding for the Terrain: New Genre Public Art. (Bay arts was being curtailed. Two of the examples highlighted in the resulting Press: Washington) © 1995. compendium of the same title, edited by artist Suzanne Lacy, confronted 28 While Adrian Piper was in the Bay the subject of racial and cultural divisions and attempted to bridge com- Area during a Mellon Postdoctoral Fel- 27 lowship at Stanford University, Funk munities. In The Gospel and the Storefront Church (1984), sponsored Lessons were hosted at UC Berkeley by the nonprofit Inter-Arts of Marin, Berkeley-based artist, Mildred (November 1983, documented on vid- Howard, converted the Old Post Office in Mill Valley, a predominantly eotape), the San Francisco Art Institute (February 1984) and New Langton affluent and white area in Marin County, into a participatory performance Arts (March 1984) and at the Woman’s installation that recognized the presence of African American residents in Building in Los Angeles (March 1984). Marin City. The Marin City Choir and Bishop Norman Williams of San 29 Expectations (1997), the summer Francisco’s Church of John Coltrane performed at the opening. Around class and related installation, was spon- that time, Adrian Piper [see pages 110–111] staged a number of partici- sored by the Alameda County Office 28 of Education, and the nonprofit Capp patory events entitled Funk Lessons (1982–1984). With the tagline a Street Project, San Francisco. collaborative experiment in cross-cultural transfusion, the lecture and dance lesson format asserted that perceived biases against a popular form like funk music exist, and it could be recontextualized as a significant medium of expression within contemporary art.

Since the 1970s, Suzanne Lacy’s socially engaged projects in the Bay Area have facilitated political activism and dialogue between different parties, notably bringing together large groups of women in Take Back the Night (1978, with Leslie Labowitz), International Dinner Party (1979, with Linda Pruess), Freeze Frame: Room for a Living Room (1982, with Carol Leigh, Julia London, and Ngoh Spencer), and Expectations (1997, with Leslie Becker, Lisa Finley, Amana Harris, Unique Holland, Annice Jacoby, Leukessia Spencer, and Maxine Wyman). The latter addressed teen pregnancy, and was part of The Oakland Projects (1991–2001), a series of nine interwoven works that tackled issues facing inner-city teenagers, from discrimination in the school system to police hostil- ity, through performances, programs, and public policy interventions.29 [see pages 104–105] The topic of pregnancy was initially raised by teen participants assembled on a parking garage rooftop in The Roof Is On Fire (1993–1994). [Fig. 11] The participants’ resulting video diaries in Expectations placed emphasis on the importance of self-representation. Attempting to provide different messaging around youth in action, Lacy, Annice Jacoby, Chris Johnson, and their extended collaborators created TEAM (Teens + Educators + Artists + Media Makers) to teach media Fig. 10 Megan Wilson, Better Homes and Gardens, 2000, San Francisco. literacy and orchestrate conversations that the media were invited to Courtesy the artist attend. This body of work, in particular the implementation of a police

55 30 Moira Roth in conversation with training manual, is more timely than ever in light of the activism and Suzanne Lacy, “Exchanges,” Art / critical debates in the media around racially-based police brutality and Women / California 1950–2000: Parallels and Intersections. Diana Burgess Fuller violence. In art historian and critic Moira Roth’s reflections on the cul- and Daniela Salvioni, editors. (Univer- minating performance in 1999 of Code 33: Emergency Clear the Air! from sity of Berkeley Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles). © 2002. p. 308 The Oakland Projects as part of a larger conversation with Lacy on their respective histories in California, she raised several considerations for these types of works:

In such performances, myriad questions always surface about the difficulty of bringing diverse people together, in circumstances that often reflect unequal balances in power and money—diversities based on race, national origin, class, and political agendas. Once people come together, do they share or differ over strategies, agen- das and expectations? Who speaks? Who is the audience(s)? And how does one (and should one?) sustain relationships once the spe- cific organizing unity, be it performance, exhibition, conference, or political goal, ends?30 Long-term projects such as The Oakland Projects can intervene into vari- ous systems to propose changes in behavior. This requires not only creat- ing space for critical comment or embracing uncertainty, but drawing from an in-depth and firsthand knowledge of a subject. As Roth noted, the performance event for Code 33 successfully allowed for intimate and unscripted exchanges in addition to the larger, on-camera group orches- tration. More broadly, the artists in Public Works employ forms of personal or direct address as a means to initiate or even redirect a conversation. At a time in which many key historical and contemporary works in the Bay Area and elsewhere are being revisited, not only through re-working doc- umentation, but through artistic strategies of developing new iterations, re-performance, and instructions for reproducible prints, we can consider the changes in the life of these works and their ongoing reverberations.

Fig. 11 Suzanne Lacy, Annice Jacoby and Chris Johnson, The Roof Is On Fire, 1993–1994. Courtesy the artist

56 57

Talking Points Courtney Fink and Leila Grothe

since 2003, courtney fink has been the executive director at Southern Exposure (SoEx) in San Francisco’s Mission District.1 Founded in 1974 as an artists’ collective, SoEx functions today as an artist-centric nonprofit committed to supporting visual artists. Fink operates there as director, curator, fundraiser, writer, producer, advocate, and keen respon- dent to the arts community in the Bay Area. She gained her experience on a grassroots learning path taking her from Franklin Furnace in New York City to Capp Street Project in San Francisco before eventually landing at Southern Exposure. On a recent evening in the cheerful SoEx offices, Fink and I met to discuss her organization’s work with artists in the public sphere and the general climate for site-specific work in the region. leila grothe: Can you talk about the ways Southern Exposure has trans- formed in the more than twelve years that you’ve been at the helm? courtney fink: The organization has grown so much that I have a different job than I did even a few years ago. My job really evolves, which is one of the reasons I like being here. The core of SoEx has remained

59 1 In July 2015, Courtney Fink steadfast, its values and mission haven’t changed at all, but the organiza- announced plans to transition out of tion has changed dramatically. When I first came on my real challenge the position of executive director after 13 years. was an unstable economic situation. I think that’s one of the reasons that someone very emerging like me was able to take this job. The organiza- tion had fallen down. It had lost most of its staff and funding and faced some serious debt. There were questions about whether or not the orga- nization would even stay open. I was also dealing with pretty major facili- ties challenges and we knew that we were going to have to move out of our building because it was not seismically sound. So we decamped from our space in 2006. We thought the dislocation was temporary but after about six months it was very clear that the retrofit project wouldn’t go through, so unexpectedly we were homeless for nearly four years. lg: How did the institution respond? cf: We were in our former building for 32 years and we decided to use this moment as an opportunity to create a set of priorities and goals that were poles apart from what we had been doing. This is when we started our public commissioning program called SoEx Off-Site. In our first nomadic year we commissioned nine projects and also started Alternative Exposure [a grant program for Bay Area artists and small groups] in part- nership with the Warhol Foundation. It was a very generative, ground- breaking year for us. We continue both of those programs today, which points to their success. lg: Southern Exposure now operates in a large gallery space in San Francisco’s Mission District, but you’ve retained your commitment to off-site work. Can you talk more about the importance of this way of working for the institution? cf: Southern Exposure did have a history of working off-site before the move, just not in the frequency or scale that we accomplished during the years without a gallery. It’s important to mention that, as a principle, an

Fig. 1 Constance Hockaday, All These abundance of voices make decisions here. Listening and responding is Darlings and Now Us, 2014, San Fran- at the heart of what we do. There is no curator or authority determining cisco. Courtesy of Southern Exposure and the artist things for the entire organization, instead many artists and people are thinking together in committees about what we are and should be doing. Fig. 2 Rebar Group, Paraformance So, we listened and heard that a lot of artists were interested in exploring [06]: The Nappening, 2006. Courtesy of Southern Exposure and the artists site-specific work. Historically, the city of San Francisco is fairly conser- vative when it comes to supporting off-site work and there are very few Fig. 3 Parking Lot Art Fair, San Francisco, 2015. Courtesy of founder venues interested in supporting emerging artists. We recognized a need to Jenny Sharaf. commission work in the public realm, so it was important to us because

60 61 62 2 For this project. Rebar was John it was important to artists. This way of working has allowed us to work Bela, Blaine Merker, and Matthew closely with significant artists on urgent and impactful projects, including Passmore. undertakings by Ledia Carroll, Liz Magic Laser, and Allison Smith, to 3 The Off Shore project took place name a few. from May 28–July 3, 2014 with a full calendar of events by Paul Cesewski, Constance Hockaday, Marie Lorenz, lg: SoEx is a deeply established institution operating in a mid-level stratum Chris Sollars, and A People’s Archive with more flexibility and risk-taking ability than a larger institution but of Sinking and Melting. higher visibility than, say, an emerging artist-run space. I’m wondering how you balance your position as an organization in order to commission unsanc- tioned artworks, or activist interventions, or more overtly political projects?

cf: We’re very willing to take risks here. We’re by the book and we get all the right permits but we’re willing to support an artist’s practice in a way that a lot of the bigger organizations wouldn’t. To give you an idea, we launched SoEx Off-Site with a thematic series looking to bring the artistic legacy of the Situationists into the technological era. Artists were asked to respond with contemporary mapping strategies and tactics for urban intervention. For one of the projects we worked with Rebar, a young collective of former landscape architects, on a project called COMMONspace.2 Rebar was interested in exploring San Francisco’s privately owned public spaces (POPOS). These spaces are developed from a city ordinance that permits certain office buildings downtown to build taller if they create a “public space,” and Rebar had a premise that these spaces were not truly public. They tested the publicness of four- teen POPOS with a series of events and interventions. We organized things like a “nappening” where people could sign up to take a 20-min- ute nap in a cot and get milk and cookies. [Fig. 2] It was fantastic. We were really pushing the boundaries and in almost every case we were kicked out. That project got so much attention from the policy point of view that the San Francisco Planning and Urban Renewal Association (SPUR), a policy think tank, ended up publishing an entire issue of their journal about the idea of POPOS after the project ended. [Fig. 4] The idea of these spaces became much more widely known throughout the city, which I see as a success for the project.

More recently in 2014, we organized a memorable project called the Off Shore series working with five different artists.3 We could sense something brewing as artists continued to be pushed out of the city. It felt very preva-

Fig. 4 POPOS Map, 2009, Courtesy lent and timely to explore the outer bounds of land and what can happen of SPUR on the water. Constance Hockaday’s performance series All These Darlings

63 and Now Us stood out in particular for me. Her project was highly political because it dealt with displaced queer and trans communities in San Fran- cisco. She wanted to reopen two recently shuttered queer businesses—a female-owned strip club in North Beach called the Lusty Lady and Esta Noche, which was a Latino queer trans bar that had been displaced at the height of the eviction crisis in the Mission. Hockaday invited these businesses to temporarily reopen on sailboats where she organized public events like live peepshows and performances by drag queens. The project was smart, complicated, and beautiful. [Fig. 1] lg: Hockaday’s project highlights a subtlety to the way Southern Exposure is working in public space. You’re not making sweeping finger-pointing state- ments about some of the community’s pressing issues, like gentrification and eviction. It seems that you stay very specific. cf: We tend not to push our agenda either in message or in the form an artist’s work will take. Every project has its own built in implications. Community building is an important value here, but we never force that on artists unless it’s their strategy already. We tend to really follow the artists and support them in how they want to work. lg: SoEx stretches the boundaries of a communal arts space. It’s a gallery, a commissioner for external public art, an instigator of opportunities to educate and collaborate, a community hub, it really serves as a grand host. Can you talk about some of the conscious decisions you’ve made about what not to do? cf: There’s a really big trend in the funding community right now with placemaking. A great deal of investment is going into questions of how art makes place and how to transform a community or a neighborhood using art as a revitalization tool. We get encouraged a lot to apply for that kind of institutional support but we haven’t figured out how to align with those goals in a way we feel good about. We’ve had some very intense conversa- tions about how we handle the placemaking impulse within a highly gen- trified neighborhood and city. What does that practice mean here? We still have to figure that out, because we have yet to find the right project for that funding. We make things a little bit hard on ourselves. lg: Can you point to some projects in San Francisco that have inspired you lately? cf: There are a lot of artist-driven initiatives happening here right now. There is a generally heavy feeling of doom and frustration that is moti- vating interesting responses. The recent Parking Lot Art Fair, conceived

64 by Jenny Sharaf, is a great example and one of the best things I’ve seen in ages. A ton of artists intervened in the parking lot outside of the art- MRKT fair for an entire day. They all arrived when the lot opened at 6am, claimed a parking spot, and stayed until 1pm with their work and projects on display. They couldn’t sell anything so it was this anti-com- mercial experiment on the doorstep of an art fair. I want to see that exact kind of thing happening here. [Fig. 3] lg: What about the kinds of things you would like to see at Southern Exposure? How do you see the organization moving forward? cf: It’s hard to talk about the future right now because, frankly, I’m con- centrating on the big picture sustainability question of how an arts space in San Francisco survives. We are viable right now because we’ve been very strategic and smart in our growth, but if we’re going to stay viable we need to continuously change and stay ahead of the thinking. A lot of artists currently want to respond to the prevailing climate of evictions, economic instability, and a growing tech monoculture. We would like to support more of that work but we want to do so in a productive way that is also going to move things forward. The work we’ve supported up to this point is extremely thoughtful and very sophisticated, and we will focus on making sure that continues.

65

Talking Points María del Carmen Carrión and Meredith Johnson

since 2007, New York-based Meredith Johnson has been curator and director of consulting at Creative Time, a nonprofit organization that commissions and presents public arts projects of all disciplines. She has also served as a curator at long time alternative space, Artists Space, and assistant director for Minetta Brook, a nonprofit arts organization that commissioned public projects throughout New York state. Quito, Ecuador-born and New York-based independent curator and art critic María del Carmen Carrión is director of public programs & research at Independent Curators International. Given their expansive views on pub- lic practice, they were invited to create a text for this publication premised on a series of informal conversations about the politics of public space, the importance of art as a mode of activism, and the role of the artist in making change. mara del carmen carrin: Could you outline some of the peculiari- ties of working in public space? meredith johnson: Although one might imagine commissioning projects in public space as a restrictive process, the reason I’ve focused my curatorial work in this area is because of its freedoms. I say this for a

67 1 Kara Walker's A Subtlety was pre- couple of reasons. 1. Projects in public space until very recently existed sented by Creative Time in 2014 at the on the periphery of the art world—because they weren’t easily definable, Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn, New York and because they weren’t in a museum with a structured mediation of experience. 2. For projects in public space to be powerful, their develop- 2 The 59th Minute was an ongoing series of one-minute video commis- ment requires a trust and close collaboration with the public and a deep sions presented by Creative Time on the partnership with the artist. Art that I respond to is ultimately about rela- Panasonic Screen in Times Square from tionships, listening to and understanding the many stories present on a 2000–2007. site, and proposing new or untold perspectives of a place. Its about mak- 3 Key to the City, by Paul Ramírez ing connections. Now I’m not necessarily talking about public art in the Jonas, was a public project presented by Creative Time in 2010 that invited percent-for-art-type model of permanent commissioning, but the kind of thousands of participants to present work we do at Creative Time or when I was at Minetta Brook—tempo- and receive keys that unlocked 24 loca- rary interventions by artists at a specific place and time. tions throughout New York City’s five boroughs, many never before accessible to the public. mdcc: Defining what constitutes public space is a challenging task, one that I would like you to take on. Especially in terms of the possibilities and limita- tions that city-owned spaces might offer, as opposed to private spaces, which could have a commercial inclination rather than a civic one. Creative Time has had several large projects sited on privately owned spaces, such as their recent project with Kara Walker.1 [Fig. 1] mj: The line between public and private space is often a blurry one. We live in a time when public space is often privately owned and where even publicly owned space can have private or corporate interests, which makes working in this realm a puzzle. Creative Time has often situated work on privately owned spaces—like our video commissions for the 59th Minute2 [Fig. 4] project on the Panasonic screen in Times Square, with MTV in Art Breaks, in the many private spaces Paul Ramirez Jonas invited people to unlock for his Key to the City3 project in 2010, and even

Fig. 1 Kara Walker, A Subtlety or the in Creative Time’s first projects in the 1970s and 1980s on vacant land Marvelous Sugar Baby, 2014. Courtesy and in abandoned storefronts in Lower Manhattan—to me the bigger of Creative Time question than who owns the space is what is the public’s relationship

Fig. 2 Tamms Year Ten project per- to it? In some cases, publicly owned spaces can be more limiting to the formance still at 2013 Creative Time artist or public than a privately managed one. There can be long lead Summit (Darrell Cannon, Reginald “Akkeem” Berry, Sr., and Brenda approvals, hearings and the mountains of paperwork behind a project, Townsend); two former Tamms prison- and it can sometimes be easier to get a timely project in front of the ers stood on stage in silence one minute public or more directly interacting with a public when a site is pri- for each year they were in solitary at Tamms and a mother of a prisoner vately owned. Look at projects like Karen Finley’s piece in Public Works, stood for her son. The men walked 1-900-ALL-KAREN, a 1998 performance sited on a 900 number. This away after eight and nine minutes; Townsend was on stage for fourteen virtual space was home to a daily message from Finley, providing a regu- minutes. Courtesy of Creative Time. lar and intimate relationship to a viewer through sound. Was this 900

68 69 number public space? I would say yes, anyone can call and one could contend that all space where anyone can listen in, access, or tune into is ultimately part of the public domain. It is art’s role to push these bound- aries of civic space, political space, and personal space. mdcc: When you talk about projects pushing the boundaries of civic space, or creating a public space, the moment that tension happens is the moment when these projects start getting real. mj: The context is obviously shaped by the city and community you are working in, and we should note that we sit here talking about this in NYC. This is a layered city in terms of what public space is, because there is really very little “public” space in NY that isn’t privately invested in. You have civic spaces such as public parks and roadways, but the majority of public spaces in which one could present art—billboards, plazas and green spaces, building facades, vacant lots, historic buildings, etc., have private interests involved.

70 It ultimately comes down to how open the person or group who con- trols the site is with the artist and their ideas. A site owner can be a true partner in the process of commissioning or they can be restrictive, and that is the case both for public or private entities. The larger problem for me is when a site owner, public or private, attempts to mediate or capi- talize on the content of an artwork. This is where issues of censorship and access come in, and where public art risks being used as a marketing tool for a site. Artists and arts presenters need to be keenly aware of the context of a site and its ownership, and willing to discuss in depth what the impact of participating in a particular location is. How do the many communities tied to a site engage with the artwork, and is the work con- tributing to the dialog of this place in a positive way? There are profound responsibilities in participating in public space, and this is where the public/private question becomes pressing for me. mdcc: If there is a blurry line between space that is publically or privately owned, then are we left with little or no true democratic space? Does all of the space we navigate respond to the contradictions of public/private perspectives, and is there something interesting in that contradiction? When you go to a museum you are not seeing a contradiction; it has gone through so many layers and committees that you are seeing a very filtered-down narrative. mj: Is that because museums and the art world in general are now more heavily mediated by private or corporate interests? mdcc: Of course. Considering these public/private issues, what do you make out of the intersection of art and activism? There has been a lot of criticism of the limits that “artivism” can have vs. the impact of some actions coming directly from an activist perspective and not being framed by the art world. What is the role of curators, artists, and audiences in setting up or pushing those limitations? mj: What is so effective about activists who use art as a vehicle for radical change are the freedoms in art that you don’t get in other areas. I say activists who engage in an art practice, as art, is one of the oldest tools of activism and revolution. Artists can take personal liberties, explore other roads to a narra- tive that can resonate in a profound emotional way. There is a comfortability Fig. 3 Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Touch in approaching something as an artwork. Art is at its most powerful when it Sanitation Performance: Sweep 7, Staten Island, 6:00 a.m. Roll Call, 1977–1980, seamlessly makes a connection for participants between their personal narra- City-wide performance with 8,500 NYC tive and the universal experience of being human. An artist can bridge gaps Department of Sanitation workers. Courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, and blur lines that both provocatively challenge viewers and bring people to New York the table who otherwise might not participate in a civic dialog.

71 4 Hrag Vartanian, “Why I Don’t Buy mdcc: Do you think it comes to a point where there is no follow-through of the Premise of Christoph Büchel’s Ice- the actions? So the moment an idea is contrived in the art world, it becomes an landic Mosque Pavilion,” Hyperallergic, May 22, 2015. http://hyperallergic. object, an image, without any connection to its original intention as a catalyst com/209399/why-i-dont-buy-the- for action. Activism is a practice that aims to go through until final conse- premise-of-christoph-buchels-icelandic- mosque-pavilion/ quences are met, whereas art, most of the time, stops in the art world. mj: I think that’s a core issue around socially engaged art as it becomes part of the larger art system, which is inherently a market driven world. For as progressive as art and artists can be, the field of art is still very conserva- tive and reductive around the notion of what constitutes an artwork or even an artist. There are of course those who will use the language of community engagement as marketing for a work, rather than developing a sustained, respectful, and honest conversation around issues presented. Likewise, there are those who are deeply invested in a site and the outcomes of a project, but whose extensive work in these areas might not be as transpar- ent to those who visit an installation or read a short blurb about it.

We see the sincerity of public projects debated more and more as socially engaged works grow in visibility. I was just reading the series of articles around Christoph Büchel’s mosque for the Icelandic Pavilion in the Venice Biennale (2015), and whether you agree or disagree with a particular critic I think it is important to interrogate the level of commu- nity engagement an artist or organizer commits to.4 I can’t speak to how that particular project was organized, but in general I think the question of what kind of information viewers are presented with in order for them to come into the process of an artwork informed is key. It is also impor- tant to consider how early engagement begins in a community before an installation opens, and ask what a work is proposing in the way of action. Ideas are only as good as the sincerity behind them and the groundwork done by those who carry them out. To me, the key work in presenting public projects is in the research, outreach, and on-site production deci- sions. Communities need to be partners in the making and translation of artworks asking them to participate—you can’t just use the history of a place and its people as a landing pad for an idea conceived in a bubble. I’m interested in questions like: how do projects bring hidden narratives out into the open? How does artwork represent a place and its people? How do artists contribute to shifting dialogs in society? Fig. 4 Kimsooja, A Needle Woman, A Beggar Woman, and A Laundry Woman, 2005. Times Square, New York City. If a project has a profound impact on viewers and the public sites they Courtesy of Creative Time engage with, does it really matter whether we classify a project as a discrete

72 73 5 Steve Powers’ Waterboarding Thrill artwork as long as it’s a profound catalyst for discussion and change? Ride was presented as part of the 2008 Laurie Jo Reynolds is an excellent example to look at, as she is such an Creative Time exhibition Democracy in America: The National Campaign, effective activist operating both in and out of what one might consider an curated by Nato Thompson. art world context. Her work focused on the Tamms Correctional Center

6 Since 1977, Mierle Laderman Ukeles with the Tamms Year Ten project, launched in 2007 with inmates, families, has been the artist in residence at the and other artists, was not to comment on the conditions of the notorious New York Department of Sanitation. supermax prison to an art audience. It was a true grassroots effort to shift

the culture and policies around this place and ultimately our understand- ing of the larger system in which these prisons reside. She and her collab- orators did not stop until there was a result, until Tamms was shut down in 2013. [Fig. 2] Laurie Jo and her partners were able to do this amazing thing not because the art world got behind them, but because they used the tools of culture, activism, and lobbying to reach a wide range of audi- ences, including policy makers. I think until we stop being so concerned with the idea of artist as the maker of a discrete artwork, and until we begin to examine the act of artmaking in the larger cultural sense as a tool for social change, only then can art have the ability to subvert systems and make substantial political waves.

mdcc: What is the most radical public project that you’ve seen or experienced? mj: Laurie Jo’s project at Tamms is definitely one. I think she is one of the most important artists working today. A while back, Creative Time did a project with Steve Powers as part of Democracy in America exhibition in 2008. Steve brought in lawyers working in the area of human rights to be waterboarded off a small alley in Coney Island. It was accompanied by his animatronic Waterboarding Thrill Ride�, touching on the history of political amusements on Coney Island.5 After the lawyers were water- boarded by a former interrogation expert, they discussed in both personal and legal terms what they had experienced. This was at a time when the Bush administration was still actively using waterboarding as an inter- rogation tool, and trying to justify torture through legal jargon. Steve was also waterboarded so he took on the same experience he asked of the participants. It was a small audience, and the most intense performance I’ve ever witnessed. It was really hard to watch, and was truly one of the gutsiest projects I’ve seen to date—I wish more had seen it.

Given these two projects, I think our systems of incarceration and pris- ons are a key issue to investigate in relationship to public space—when is our freedom to navigate public space taken away and who are the powers

74 that control this. Prisons are civically owned public spaces that the public has little access to or understanding of. mdcc: or privately owned . . . mj: Large amounts of public money flow into them, huge numbers of our citizens end up in them—overwhelmingly young men of color—and tax- payers support this institutionalized system that is inherently flawed and grossly unjust. In relationship to an issue this large, this important, Tamms Ten Year may be one of the most civic projects to date as it was truly art and activism working together in an effective way on an urgent subject facing this country. Why is it that we don’t have more artworks, or proj- ects with artists as initiators, that result in a systematic change, especially if artists have the privilege to explore issues those working within a system may not have the freedom to explore? If artists are free to call out social injustice, why aren’t more involved in leading policy debates rather than just commenting on them? Laurie Jo has called her work “legislative art,” which I think is key in thinking about the kind of power artists can have. mdcc: But people respond to that. mj: Going back to your first question, I think the big dilemma for those working in public practice is: How do we get past the idea that art- ists operate in an art world vs. the world at large? Part of that question requires us to know why artists aren’t valued in society as community leaders, and how we change that. Why aren’t artists today considered an important voice in a civic dialog in the US? This is what many of the projects in Public Works are pushing at—like Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s ongoing work as the artist in residence for an entire city agency in New York.6 [Fig. 3] Is it that society in general doesn’t value culture and the expertise of artist, or is it that we as a field can’t look past ourselves to see the broader applications of a project and its core ideas? These are the questions I ask every day, along with how we move the barriers (or weight) of what history considers proper vehicles for art. I firmly believe that in art there is freedom, and artistic exchange is one of the fundamental platforms we have as a society to explore ideas core to us as humans in an unabashed way.

75

WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION Amy Balkin

Born Baltimore, Maryland; lives and Public Smog represents a series of manipulate attempts to regulate climate works in San Francisco, California attempts to create an “atmospheric change. The project reveals the inter- Public Smog, 2004–ongoing park” for public use through financial, section between the geopolitics of the Flash animation slideshow projection, legal, or political activities. Exploring atmosphere and political and economic 28 min. the concept of the atmosphere as a efforts to monetize and control this Installation dimensions variable Courtesy the artist social, political, and economic forma- system through markets and interna- tion, Amy Balkin’s project highlights tional law. Amy Balkin, with contributions from the complexities and contradictions of Dr. Alexandra Thompson, David Amy Balkin is a San Francisco- current environmental policies. Activi- Oppenheimer, Mark Van Soestbergen, based artist whose work focuses on Dr. David Pepper, Dr. Thomas Cahill ties to create the park have included how humans create, interact with, and (CO2 Metrics), Josh On, Kate Rich, purchasing and retiring emission off- impact the social and material land- Public Co. Trading partner Fiona Parry, sets in regulated emissions markets, the anonymous 2004 NOX trader, and scapes they inhabit. She received an making them inaccessible to polluting Hungarian traders who waived their MFA in New Genres from Stanford fees and executed EUA trades in 2006. industries and creating clean air spaces. University. Exhibitions include Carbon Additional thanks to all who helped When Public Smog is built through this answer questions about the World 13 at the Ballroom Marfa, Required process, it exists in the unfixed public Heritage List process, and to friendly Reading at The Center for Book Arts, airspace above the region where off- and unfriendly emissions trading and Bay Area Now 6 at Yerba Buena brokers, agencies, and administrative sets are purchased and withheld from Center for the Arts. Balkin was a fea- and nonprofit representatives involved use. The park’s size varies, reflecting with, or consulted during the research tured artist at dOCUMENTA (13), the amount of emissions allowances and trading process. Special thanks the presenting Public Smog. Royal College of Art MA Curating purchased and the length of contract, Contemporary Art class of 2007, Rob compounded by seasonal fluctuations in Halpern, Joseph Del Pesco/Collective Foundation, Fabienne Delpy-Adler, air quality. Kevin Smith of Carbon Trade Watch, The project is designed so that Ben Furstenberg, Ingrid Swensen, and unnamed khat traders and chewers from anyone can construct Public Smog at Stepney Green. any time. Balkin’s own attempts have included the creation of a park above the European Union in 2006 and a park located over California’s South Coast Air Quality Management Dis- trict’s Coastal Zone in 2004, as well as an attempt to submit the Earth’s atmo- sphere for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Through Public Smog, Balkin demonstrates the strate- Previous page: Guerrilla Girls with gies by which polluting entities and buckets of glue, circa 1980s. Courtesy nation-states legally and financially of guerrillagirls.com

78 Amy Balkin, Public Smog, 2004–ongoing. Courtesy the artist

79 Tania Bruguera

Born Havana, Cuba; lives and works in At the 2009 Havana Biennial, Tania take. In order to participate, they must Queens, New York Bruguera provided a temporary platform assume their role as citizens actively Tatlin’s Whisper #6 (Havana Version), for the free speech normally denied in engaged in political process. A total of 2009 Cuba. Tatlin’s Whisper # 6 (Havana Ver- 39 persons made use of the microphone Single channel video projection with sion) was held in the central patio of the to express their affinities and differ- sound, 40:33 min. Documentation of a performance at the Havana Biennial, Wilfredo Lam Center, the institution in ences with the Cuban political system, 2009: stage, podium, microphones, 1 charge of organizing the Havana Bien- after which Bruguera took the podium loudspeaker inside and 1 outside of the nial. The audience was handed two hun- to thank the Cubans for their cour- building, 2 actors in military outfits, 1 dred disposable cameras with flash to age and their exercise of freedom of white dove, 1 minute free of censorship per speaker, 200 disposable cameras document the performance and told that expression. After the performance, the with flash they could freely express their thoughts organizing committee of the Biennial Installation dimensions variable at the podium. They could speak uncen- denounced the comments of the partic- Courtesy the artist sored for one minute, after which they ipants and accused the artist of creating were escorted away by two actors in mil- a platform specifically for the purpose itary uniforms. A white dove was placed of discrediting the Cuban revolution. on each speaker’s shoulder in allusion International media disseminated the to the dove that landed on Fidel Castro event and its impact. The emergence in during his first speech in Havana after the following months of performance the triumph of the 1959 revolution. Part strategies by art groups and bloggers of a series of works that seek to activate who took the streets in Cuba with viewers’ participation by recontextual- demands or spoke to audiences denied izing powerful images from significant to them is attributed to this piece. events, Tatlin’s Whisper #6 (Havana Ver- Tania Bruguera is a Cuban instal- sion) confronts the widespread apathy lation and performance artist based that has followed in the wake of several in Chicago and Havana. She studied failed social revolutions. The title of the at the Instituto Superior de Arte in series, Tatlin’s Whisper, is a reference to Havana and then earned an MFA in early 20th century Russian artist and performance from the School of the Art architect Vladimir Tatlin, whose Con- Institute of Chicago. She is the founder structivist tower was to be a monument and director of Arte de Conducta to the Third Communist International. (behavior art), the first performance Never built, the tower is a symbol of studies program in Latin America, frustrated revolution and utopian ideals which is hosted by Instituto Superior for Bruguera. de Arte in Havana. In 2015, she was The most important element in this named the first artist in residence in series is the participation of spectators New York City’s Mayor’s Office of who determine the course the piece will Immigrant Affairs.

80 Tania Bruguera, Tatlin’s Whisper #6 (Havana Version), 2009. Courtesy the artist

81 Candy Chang

Born Pittsburgh; lives and works in Candy Chang challenges the con- can ask questions to their community New Orleans ventional perception of public space, about the places they care about. These I Wish This Was, 2010–ongoing creating interactive public installa- questions are tied to real world projects Vinyl stickers, civic input on sites tions that provoke civic engagement so residents’ ideas and feedback will Stickers each: 3 x 4 ½ in. and emotional introspection. I Wish lead to change. As an artist, designer, Photo documentation of I Wish This Was Inkjet prints each: 4 x 6 in. This Was invites the public to share and urban planner, Chang’s public art Courtesy the artist their hopes for vacant civic areas. In projects are an attempt to make public 2010, Chang placed boxes of free fill- spaces better serve the people who live, in-the-blank stickers in businesses work, and play in them. around New Orleans and posted grids Taiwanese-American artist Candy of blank stickers on unoccupied build- Chang’s projects include a vacant high- ings across the city, so anyone walking rise pleading for love, a confessional by could fill one out. Made of vinyl sanctuary in a Las Vegas casino, a site- and easily removed without damaging specific fable in an apartment complex, property, the stickers were an experi- and a public wall for personal aspira- ment to see what might happen if the tions. She received a BS in Architecture public could easily say what they want and a BFA in Graphic Design from the in vacant storefront spaces and other University of Michigan and a Masters spaces in their community. Responses in Urban Planning from Columbia ranged from the functional to the University. Her participatory public art poetic: I wish this was . . . a butcher project Before I Die has been recreated shop, a community garden, a bike rack, in over 500 cities and over 70 countries, a place to sit and talk, an affordable and her work has been exhibited in farmer’s market, a taco stand, a donut/ the Venice Architecture Biennale; the flower shop, full of nymphomaniacs New Museum, New York; and the Tate with PhDs, a source of tasty healthy Modern, London. She is a recipient of food I could afford, my art gallery, your the TED Senior Fellowship, the Tulane dream, heaven. University Urban Innovation Fellow- After seeing the public responses, ship, and the Art Production Fund Chang worked with Dan Parham and Artist Residency. Tee Parham to develop a more robust tool in the form of Neighborland, a nation-wide tool to help organizations and residents collaborate on the future of their communities. An online/public installation tool for civic collaboration, through Neighborland organizations

82 Candy Chang, I Wish This Was, 2010. Courtesy the artist

83 Minerva Cuevas|Mejor Vida Corp.

Born Mexico City, Mexico; lives and Minerva Cuevas’ socially engaged prac- organization of the social sphere. Her works in Mexico City, Mexico tice aims to provide insight into the works often appear as cultural experi- Student ID, 1998–ongoing complex economic and political struc- ments, where artistic practice meets Installation with vinyl, photo booth, tures of society, offering playful pos- political activism. card printing materials, attendant sibilities for their subversion. In 1998, Dimensions variable Minerva Cuevas is a Mexican she founded Mejor Vida Corp. (Better Courtesy the artist and Kurimanzutto, conceptual artist and is known for Life Corporation), an enterprise that Mexico City the social and political research that provides free products and services such inform her projects. She studied at as international student ID cards, sub- the National School of Plastic Arts way passes, lottery tickets, and barcode UNAM. She is the founder of the stickers which reduce the price of food Mejor Vida Corp. (1998) and mem- at supermarket chains. Part pseudo- ber of Irational.org. She was cited in corporation, part non-profit organi- Rubén Gallo’s New Tendencies of Mexi- zation, the project revolves around a can Art (2004). Cuevas was awarded website that offers a range of public the DAAD grant in Berlin (2005) and services (www.irational.org/mvc/). The was part of the Delfina Studios resi- Mejor Vida Corp. Student ID card can dency program in London (2001). Her be used internationally to obtain free work has been exhibited at the Tate or reduced museum admissions, public Modern, London; Museo Universitario transportation, travel accommodation, de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City; other IDs, discounts on airfares, as well Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and as many other benefits. the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Small but poignant interventions among others. into the everyday realm, these modest acts infiltrate and disrupt economic and social systems. In exposing inequality and hardship, Mejor Vida Corp. offers a critique of established systems that has the potential to instigate grassroots revolt. Cuevas’ work tweaks existing social and economic systems to sug- gest possibilities for more equitable conditions. Her practice examines the potential of informal and alternative economies, and her work allows view- ers and participants insight into the complexities of economic and political

84 Minerva Cuevas, Student ID, 1998–ongoing. Courtesy the artist and Kurimanzutto, Mexico City

85 Agnes Denes

Born Budapest, Hungary; lives and An early pioneer of environmental art, confluence of ecological mismanage- works in New York City, New York Agnes Denes created Wheatfield—A ment, world trade, hunger, and waste. Wheatfield—A Confrontation: Battery Confrontation during a four-month Denes describes her “long-standing Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan period in 1982. With support of the concern and need to call attention (composite), 1982 Public Art Fund and the assistance to our misplaced priorities and dete- Type-C print 30 x 40 in. of many volunteers, Denes removed riorating human values” as inspiring Commissioned by the Public Art Fund, trash from the Battery Park Landfill Wheatfield—A Confrontation and its New York and planted a two-acre field of wheat evocation of a more organic relation- Courtesy the artist and Leslie in downtown Manhattan two blocks ship to goods and labor. Shortly after Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York from Wall Street and the former the project’s conclusion, Battery Park World Trade Center, facing the Statue Landfill was turned into billion-dollar Tree Mountain—A Living Time of Liberty. Two hundred truckloads of luxury apartment and retail complexes, Capsule—11,000 Trees, 11,000 People, 400 Years (Triptych), 1992/2013 topsoil were brought in and the land exemplifying the processes of property Type-C print was cleared of rocks and garbage by development and resource allocation 36 x 36 in. hand. The project yielded over 1000 that incited Denes’ large-scale inter- Courtesy the artist and Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, pounds of wheat. The harvested grain vention into the site. then traveled to 28 cities around the New York Agnes Denes is a Hungarian-born world in an exhibition called The Inter- American conceptual artist based in national Art Show for the End of World New York. She is known for works in Hunger, organized by the Minnesota a wide range of media, from poetry Museum of Art (1987­–1990). The and philosophy writings, to complex seeds were then symbolically planted hand and computer rendered diagrams, around the globe. sculpture, and international envi- The project was a stark visual con- ronmental installations, such as Tree tradiction: a beautiful golden field of Mountain (1992). She has been the wheat set among the gray urban sky- recipient of numerous awards, includ- scrapers of downtown Manhattan. Its ing four fellowships from the National site was also a stark political and social Endowment for the Arts, the Rome contradiction: an organic intervention Prize from the American Academy addressing a basic human need next to in Rome, and has been featured at Wall Street’s financial speculation and the Museum of Modern Art, New exchange of global resources. Denes York; the Metropolitan Museum of repositioned an expanse of some of the Art, New York; and the Whitney most valuable real estate in the world— Museum of American Art, New York, she notes that the lot was worth $4.5 among others. billion—as a site for harvesting crops in order to provoke considerations of the

86 Agnes Denes, Wheatfield—A Confrontation, Battery Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan —With Agnes Denes Standing in the Field, 1982. Courtesy the artist and Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York

87 Tatyana Fazlalizadeh

Born Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Tatyana Fazlalizadeh’s project Stop Tell- Fazlalizadeh is interested in address- lives and works in New York City, ing Women to Smile was born out of the ing those who underplay the problem New York idea that street art can be an impactful of gender-based street harassment, Stop Telling Women to Smile, 2012 tool for addressing street harassment. stating: “There are always those who The work attempts to address gender- want to tell women that their experi- You Are Not Entitled to My Space, 2014 based street harassment by pasting ences are not valid or not important Women Art Not Outside for Your in public spaces large-scale black and whenever they speak up. For me, as a Entertainment, 2014 white portraits of women captioned black woman, this is particularly true. I Am Not Your Geisha China Doll Asian with messages directed to offenders, Wanting the basic right of feeling com- Fetish, 2014 including: “Stop Telling Women to fortable and safe and not sexualized as

Respect That Gay Women Don’t Want Smile,” “You Are Not Entitled To My I walk out of my house is very much You, 2014 Body,” and “Women Are Not Seeking worth prioritizing.”

Your Validation.” The project takes Inkjet prints Tatyana Fazlalizadeh is an American women’s voices, and faces, and puts Dimensions variable artist, activist, and freelance illustra- Courtesy of artist them in the street—creating a bold tor of black and Iranian descent. She presence for women in an environ- graduated from the University of the ment where they are often made to feel Arts in Philadelphia in 2007. Her work uncomfortable and unsafe. The project has been exhibited at venues through- began in Brooklyn in 2012 and has out the US. Images of her work were expanded to several cities, including included in Art for Obama: Designing Mexico City after Fazlalizadeh received Manifest Hope and the Campaign for emails from women who were fed up Change, edited by Shepard Fairey and with harassment and wanted to share Jennifer Gross (2009). Four of the their stories around the city. Stop Telling Women to Smile portraits Fazlalizadeh recruited friends and featured in Public Works were devel- colleagues to help make Stop Telling oped from Fazlaziadeh’s residency and Women to Smile, drawing her subjects exhibition at the Betti Ono Gallery, in strong, confrontational poses that Oakland in 2014. are meant to humanize the face of women in public spaces. She inter- views her subjects about their experi- ences and what they would like to say to harassers, and these conversations become the inspiration for the text underneath each portrait.

88 Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, Stop Telling Women to Smile, 2014, New York City, Courtesy the artist and Dustin Chambers

89 Karen Finley

Born Chicago, Illinois; lives and works Every day for six months, artist Karen individual artists. In 1998, the case in New York City, New York Finley recorded a personal message was petitioned for consideration with 1­-900­-ALL-KAREN, 1998 that audiences across the country could the Supreme Court, and 1-900-ALL- Telephone with recorded phone access via a 1­-900 number. Inspired by KAREN became a source of informa- messages from six-month presentation America’s growing fascination with the tion on Finley’s perspective concerning Offset printed postcard Commissioned by Creative Time, telephone as a personal, yet anonymous this ruling. outlet for information and companion- New York Karen Finley is an American per- Courtesy the artist and Fales Library ship, Finley chose to use telecommu- formance artist, musician and poet. and Special Collections, New York nications as a vehicle to connect with a University She received her MFA from the San national audience. Finley’s phone com- Francisco Art Institute and is currently 1-­900­-ALL-KAREN, 1998 mentary responded to a range of topics, a professor at the Tisch School of the Offset printed matchbook including observations relating to news Collection Mills College Art Museum Arts at New York University. Among headlines and social injustices, as well Finley’s books are Shock Treatment, as more personal reflections on mother- Enough Is Enough: Weekly Meditations hood and daily life. for Living Dysfunctionally, the Martha Supported by Creative Time, New Stewart satire Living It Up: Humorous York, 1-900-ALL-KAREN provided Adventures in Hyperdomesticity, and A listeners with a very personal experi- Different Kind of Intimacy. Her work ence—a virtual one-on-one look at an has been featured at the Museum of artist. She specifically appropriated a Modern Art, New York; the New 900 exchange (usually associated with Museum of Contemporary Art, New phone sex, horoscopes, and psychics) York; the Museum of Arts and Design, as a venue to explore free expression. New York; as well as performances at This choice was a deliberate response numerous venues throughout the US. to Finley’s earlier experience as a mem- ber of the “NEA Four.” In 1990, Finley and three other performance artists’ National Endowment for the Arts grants were rescinded due to politi- cal charges of obscenity. Grants were overtly vetoed on the basis of subject matter after the artists had successfully passed through a peer review process. Finley fought the NEA’s decision and in 1992 the grant was reinstated. In response, the NEA, under pres- sure from Congress, stopped funding

90 Karen Finley, 1-900-ALL-KAREN postcard, 1998. Courtesy the artist and Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University

91 Coco Fusco

Born New York City, New York; lives Inspired by the public protests in the and is director of intermedia initiatives and works in New York City, New York Middle East beginning in 2011, Coco in the School of Art, Media, and Tech- The Empty Plaza/La Plaza Vacia, 2012 Fusco looked at communal spaces nology at Parsons The New School for Single channel­ video projection with around the world—those being uti- Design. She has developed collabora- sound, 11:52 min lized and, in contrast, those left empty. tive performances with artist Guillermo Dimensions variable Courtesy the artist and Alexander Gray For The Empty Plaza/La Plaza Vacia, Gomez Pena, including Two Undis- Associates, New York the empty Plaza de la Revolución in covered Amerindias (1992–1994). She Havana, Cuba becomes the protago- has also presented performances and nist in her meditation on public space, videos in some of the most prominent revolutionary promise, and memory. arts festivals worldwide, including The Intermittent close-range views bring Whitney Biennial, Sydney Biennale, the Plaza’s architecture into focus, The Shanghai Biennale, Transmediale, while long takes documenting Fusco’s and The London International Theatre passage through the vacant square Festival. are punctuated by vintage archival footage depicting scenes from Post- Revolutionary Cuba. A Spanish narra- tion, written by Cuban journalist Yoani Sanchez, describes what appears—and does not appear. Cinematic in impact, the visuals are dominated by a broad horizon line as the large sky and the vast civic plaza are nearly equalized. “The absence of public in some plazas seemed just as resonant and provocative as its presence in others,” Fusco recalls. “Cuba’s Plaza of the Revolution is one such place—a stark, inhospitable arena where all the major political events of the past half- century have been marked by mass choreography, militarized displays and rhetorical flourish.” Coco Fusco is a Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist and writer. Fusco has performed and curated throughout the United States and internationally,

92 Coco Fusco, The Empty Plaza/La Plaza Vacia, 2012, (production still). Courtesy the artist and Alexander Gray Associates, New York

93 Guerrilla Girls

How Many Women Had One-Person Founded in 1985, the Guerrilla Girls The Guerrilla Girls’ work has been Exhibitions At NYC Museums Last Year?, are an anonymous feminist art collec- exhibited extensively at venues such 1985 Poster tive that has helped redefine feminist as the Whitney Museum of American 17 x 22 in. activism through critique of an exclu- Art, New York; Franklin Furnace, New Collection Mills College Art Museum sionary art world which marginalizes York; the Institute of Contemporary

The Advantages Of Being A Woman women artists and artists of color. Art, Boston; and the New Museum of Artist, 1988 Combining humor and mockery, their Contemporary Art, New York. They Poster early work attacked the 1980s art scene, have created large-scale projects for the 17 x 22 in. pointing out the lack of representation Venice Biennale; the Centre Pompidou, Collection Mills College Art Museum of female artists and artists of color in Paris; as well as for locations in Mexico Women In America Earn Only 2/3 Of major art museum collections. While City, London, and Athens. They have What Men Do. Women Artists Earn Only the Guerrilla Girls’ focus remained produced several books, including: 1/3 of What Men Do, 1985 Poster centered around the feminist fight for The Guerrilla Girls’ Bedside Compan- 17 x 22 in. artistic diversity and equality in muse- ion to Modern Art; Bitches, Bimbos and Collection Mills College Art Museum ums and galleries, over the years their Ballbreakers: The Guerrilla Girls’ Guide

You’re Only Seeing Half the Picture With- social commentary has expanded to to Female Stereotypes; and The Guer- out the Vision of Women Artists and Artists encompass subjects beyond the artistic rilla Girls’ Art Museum Activity Book. of Color, 1989 landscape, such as the Gulf War, rape, The retrospective exhibition Guerrilla Poster 17 x 22 in. homelessness, and abortion rights. Girls 1985–2015, consisting of almost Collection Mills College Art Museum 200 works including photographs, let- Members of the Guerrilla Girls ters, and small projects, was shown at Top Ten Signs That You’re An Art World take the names of dead women art- Matadero in Madrid, Spain. Token, 1995 ists and wear gorilla masks in public. Poster 17 x 22 in. Thirty years after their first actions, the Collection Mills College Art Museum Guerrilla Girls remain an active force. Members travel extensively, giving lec- tures and holding workshops on how to construct effective political graphics to provoke dialogue, while they continue producing their own work inspired by today’s issues. The collective continues to incorporate a populist approach to art by producing large quantities of quickly reproducible works to reach a broad viewership.

94 Guerrilla Girls, Posters on the streets of New York City. 1985. Courtesy guerrillagirls.com

95 Sharon Hayes

Born Baltimore, Maryland; lives and For eight days between December from private, and this work is a reflec- works in New York City, New York 1, 2007 and January 12, 2008, Sha- tion on the difference between speaking I March In The Parade Of Liberty But ron Hayes walked from the New and listening. Her artistic approach As Long As I Love You I’m Not Free, Museum of Contemporary Art in was impacted by the New York theater 2007–2008 lower Manhattan to a different site of scene of the early 1990s, which was Public address system, audio file, and digital print public speech, such as Union Square, political, feminist, queer-identified, and 1 Print: 23 ⅝ x 20 ⁄16 in. Tompkins Square, Confucius Square besieged by the AIDS crisis. Courtesy the artist and Tanya Leighton in Chinatown, and Christopher Street Sharon Hayes is an artist who Gallery, Berlin Park. Pausing at street corners every engages multiple mediums including few blocks, Hayes spoke a single, video, performance and installation. repeated love address to an anonymous She received her MFA from the Uni- and unnamed lover. Drawing from versity of California, Los Angeles. She sources, such as De Profundis, Oscar has had solo exhibitions at the Whit- Wilde’s letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, ney Museum of American Art, New and slogans from early gay liberation York and the Museo Nacional Centro parades in New York City, the “love de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. Her work address” used so-­called private speech been shown at the Gwangju Biennale; to examine the emotional layering of Venice Biennale; the Museum of Mod- promise and disappointment in collec- ern Art, New York; the Guggenheim tive political action. Museum, New York; and numerous Standing on the street with a bull- museums and venues in Europe and horn, the artist looks as if she is per- the Americas. Hayes is the recipient of forming a public speech, but in reality a Guggenheim Fellowship. is speaking to a lover from whom she is separated, using texts that do not quite illuminate the situation. While talking about love and desire, Hayes also speaks about war and the way in which war interrupts, or not, our daily lives, activities, and wants. The piece is part of a series of works dealing with the relationship between personal and political desire, love and politics, and raises questions about war, the emo- tional landscape of protest actions and public speech. Hayes is interested in the minute distance that separates public

96 Sharon Hayes, I March In The Parade Of Liberty But As Long As I Love You I’m Not Free, 2007– 2008. Courtesy the artist and Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin.

97 Lynn Hershman Leeson

Born Cleveland, Ohio; lives and works Lynn Hershman Leeson’s subjects virtual. She has gone beyond represent- in San Francisco, California and New range from establishing identity in a ing identity to producing identities, York City, New York consumerist culture to negotiations developing her work from the idea of Select documentation of The Dante between privacy and surveillance. women operating from marginalized Hotel, 1973–1974 Throughout her career, she has devel- positions to create their own sense of All works and exhibition copies courtesy the artist and Anglim Gilbert Gallery, oped innovative modes of questioning empowerment and identity. and restructuring institutional, social, San Francisco Lynn Hershman Leeson is an artist and interpersonal space. In The Dante Dante Hotel: Detail of Occupants of Room and filmmaker, and pioneer in creating Hotel (1973–1974), the nine-month 47, 1973–1974 online art environments that incorpo- Offset print project she created with the artist rate artificial intelligence. Hershman 7 ½ x 10 in. Eleanor Coppola and from which her Leeson has been the subject of a recent influentialRoberta Breitmore project Dante Hotel: Vanity and Corner Sink, touring museum retrospective orga- 1973–1974 evolved, Hershman Leeson invited the nized by ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany. Offset print public to imagine the life of a fictitious In 2011 she released the documen- 7 ½ x 10 in. individual through the personal and tary !Women Art Revolution. She has Dante Hotel: Flyer, 1973–1974; utilitarian objects left behind in a seedy received grants from Creative Capital, printed 2015 hotel room. The Dante Hotel artifacts Inkjet print the National Endowment for the Arts, function as markers that describe fic- 10 x 7 ½ in. and been honored with a lifetime tional identities and allow viewers to achievement award in the field of New Dante Hotel: Photograph Up the Stairs, imagine or reconstruct the personal 1973–1974; printed 2015 Media by the Digital Art Museum, narratives of these characters. Inkjet print Berlin. Her work is in the permanent 10 x 8 in. Hershman Leeson went on to create collections of the Museum of Mod- Dante Hotel: Photograph of the Hallway, The Floating Museum (1974–1978), a ern Art, New York; the Los Angeles 1973–1974; printed 2015 project in which she commissioned art- County Museum of Art; the Walker Inkjet print 10 x 8 in. ists to create site-specific and ephem- Art Center, Minneapolis; Berkeley Art eral works in public spaces. Museums Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Dante Hotel: Signing in at the Dante have since embraced many of the artis- California, among others. Hotel, November 1973, 1973; printed 2015 tic forms developed by the feminist art Inkjet print movement, including performance art, 10 x 8 in. installation, and site-specific, sound-

Dante Hotel: Window, 1973–1974; based, and ephemeral work. Hershman printed 2015 Leeson has consistently and success- Inkjet print fully expanded the possibilities for 8 x 10 in. sites of encounter with art throughout her career. She has situated her work outside the institutional realm of the museum, in places that are liminal and

98 Lynn Hershman Leeson, Dante Hotel: Flyer, (1973–74). Courtesy the artist and Anglim Gilbert Gallery, San Francisco

99 Jenny Holzer

Born Gallipolis, Ohio; lives and works Jenny Holzer began working with text Independent Study Program. She in Hoosick Falls, New York as a tool to manipulate the language of received the Leone d’Oro at the Venice Inflammatory Essays, 1979–1982 popular culture while producing politi- Biennale in 1990. Holzer’s work has Offset posters on colored paper cal commentary. Her early work con- been shown in exhibitions worldwide, Each: 17 x 17 in. sisted of aggressive statements meant to including Museum of Contemporary Courtesy the artist propel the passive viewer into an act of Art, Chicago, and Fondation Beyeler, questioning. Inflammatory Essays are a Basel, Switzerland, and is in the collec- collection of 100-word texts that were tion of numerous major museums. printed on colored paper and posted throughout New York City. The texts are provocative and their subjects range from the scientific to the political and interpersonal. Influ- enced by major political figures such as Emma Goldman, Mao Tse-Tung, and Vladimir Lenin, the anonymous state- ments are the invention of the artist, although they do not necessarily reflect the artist’s own views. From one text to another they demonstrate a spectrum of views, from far-left to far-right. By masking the author of the essays, Holzer allows the viewer to assess ideologies divorced from the personalities that propel them. With this series, Holzer invites the reader to consider the urgent necessity of social change, the possibil- ity for manipulation of the public, and the conditions that attend revolution. Jenny Holzer is an American instal- lation and conceptual artist best known for her LED sign sculptures displaying carefully composed phrases that act as meditations on power, knowledge, and hope. She received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and participated in the Whitney Museum’s

100 Jenny Hozer, Inflammatory Essays, 1979–1982, New York City. Courtesy the artist and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

101 Emily Jacir

Born Bethlehem, Palestine; lives and Combining the role of archivist, A Palestinian artist and filmmaker, works in Rome, Italy and Ramallah, activist, and poet, Emily Jacir creates Emily Jacir has shown extensively West Bank poignant works of art that are at once throughout Europe, the Americas, and linz diary, 2003 intensely personal and deeply political. the Middle East since 1994 with solo 26 chromogenic prints Her work often addresses the circum- exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, overall 8 x 228 in.; each: 8 x 8 ¾ in. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, stances of the Palestinian community, Ramallah, Beirut, London, and Linz. Accessions Committee Fund purchase but also highlights the general condi- Jacir participated in dOCUMENTA tion of exile and the negotiation of (13); 15th Biennale of Sydney; and the tenuous borders as she focuses on the 8th Istanbul Biennial. Awards include a mundane details of everyday life as well Leone D’Oro at the 52nd Venice Bien- as momentous historical events. nale, the Hugo Boss Prize at the Gug- genheim Museum, and the Rome Prize For the month of October, 2003, at the American Academy in Rome. Jacir went to the same square in the city of Linz, Austria at approximately 6 pm every evening in order to be cap- tured on a webcam. Jacir explores the complexities of surveillance by insert- ing herself into the frame of one of the city’s multiple webcams. Thus, she asserts herself as a resident of both this space and the global network of images residing in unknown locations. She added captions to these self- portraits, drawing the viewer’s attention to her moods, subtle changes in the square, and cultural events:

October 4, 2003 18:00 among many other strange curiosities is this town’s obses- sion with web cams. that’s me in front of the fountain standing alone

October 11, 2003 18:00 me curled up into a ball hiding

October 12, 2003 18:00 me lying on the fountain, staring up at the blue patch of sky above linz, watching a small white airplane go by

102 Emily Jacir, photo from linz diary, 2003. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Accessions Committee Fund purchase; courtesy SFMOMA

103 Suzanne Lacy

Born Wasco, California; lives and works As an artist, educator, social activ- No Blood/No Foul was a basketball in Los Angeles, California ist, and writer, Suzanne Lacy’s work game as performance that pitted youth

The Roof Is On Fire, 1993–1994; in over the course of the last 40 years against police officers and engaged the collaboration with Annice Jacoby and has focused on taking art out of the public in the formation of an Oakland Chris Johnson. Participating artists gallery and into the world to engage Youth Policy. The performance, with its include Jacques Bronson, Unique Hol- land, Lauren Manduke, Andy Hamner new audiences and galvanize a public live action video interrupts, pre-recorded and Stephanie Johnson. Produced with discussion about race, poverty, and interviews of players, half-time dance assistance from The Oakland Unified social justice. Between 1991 and 2001, presentation, original soundtrack, and School District and Oakland Sharing Lacy and her collaborators produced sports commentators, mixed up the rules the Vision. lengthy and multi-scale public projects of the game. Youth referees replaced No Blood/No Foul, 1996; in collaboration that included workshops and classes adult referees in the second quarter, with Annice Jacoby and Chris Johnson. for youth, media interventions, and and in the third quarter there were no Participants include Unique Holland, Frank Williams, Stan Hebert, Jacques institutional program and policy devel- referees—it was street ball, where the Bronson, Mike Shaw, Steve Costa, Offi- opment. The Oakland Projects are one rule is, “If there is no blood then there is cer Terry West, Chief Joseph Samuels, of the most developed explorations of no foul.” For the last quarter, the audi- Captain Sharon Jones and Greg Hodges of Urban Strategies Council. Produced community, youth leadership, and pub- ence became the referee. Youth reporters with assistance from the Oakland lic policy in current visual and public interviewed the crowd, and telephones in Mayor’s Office and Mayor Elihu Harris, arts practice. the lobby were connected to a hotline for Oakland Sharing the Vision, Oakland audience response to the proposed Oak- Police Department, Midnight Basket- ball and Club One at City Center and The Roof Is On Fire featured land Youth Policy Initiative, a youth-to- Bramalea Incorporated as part of the 220 public high school students in youth granting program that was subse- Oakland Youth Policy Initiative led by unscripted and unedited conversations quently passed by the city council. Councilwoman Sheila Jordan. on family, sexuality, drugs, culture, edu- Code 33: Emergency Clear the Air!, 1997– cation, and the future as they sat in 100 Code 33: Emergency Clear the 1999; in collaboration with with Unique cars parked on a rooftop garage with Air!, presented one hundred red, white Holland and Julio César Morales. Participants include Mayor Jerry over 1000 Oakland residents listening and black cars on the rooftop of Oak- Brown, Annice Jacoby, Jacques Bron- in. Over the course of two years, Lacy land’s City Center West Garage. In the son, Raul Cabra, Chris Johnson, Greg and Chris Johnson worked weekly with glow of their headlights, small group Hodge, David Goldberg, Patrick Toebe, teachers at Oakland Technical High facilitated discussions between 100 Ellen Sebastian Chang, Sgt. Jeff Israel, Lee Anne Lucke, and Kim Baptiste. School to create a media literacy cur- police officers and 150 young people Produced with assistance from the Oak- riculum on teen identity and politics confronted urgent issues: crime, author- land Mayor’s Office and the Oakland and subsequently created an advanced ity, power and safety. Named after the Police Department. training program for teachers from police radio code to clear the radio 3 video excerpts, sound, 9 min. eight Oakland public high schools. waves, the three-year project explored 1 police training handbook Annice Jacoby was instrumental in ways to reduce police hostility toward Courtesy the artist bringing significant media collabora- youth, provide youth with a set of skills tions to the project, including CNN to participate in their communities, and and KRON-Television. generate a broader public understanding

104 Suzanne Lacy, Unique Holland, and Julio César Morales, Code 33: Emergency Clear the Air!​, 1997–1999. Courtesy the artist

of youth needs. After an hour of heated recipient of several National Endow- discussions, the final act of the perfor- ment for the Arts Fellowships. She is mance featured eight neighborhood the author of over 70 published articles councils discussing the issues between and her work has been documented in youth and police in their communities. art anthologies, in television specials produced by PBS and NBC, and in Suzanne Lacy is best known for her countless national and international socially oriented, large-scale installa- news broadcasts. She is currently the tions and performances. Lacy has been founding chair of the MFA in Public a Guggenheim Fellow, a Lila Wallace Practice at Otis College of Art and Arts International Fellow, and the Design in Los Angeles.

105 Marie Lorenz

Born Twentynine Palms, California; Marie Lorenz has been exploring Marie Lorenz received an MFA lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and documenting New York City’s from Yale University. She has received Tide and Current Taxi, 2005–ongoing waterfronts for many years. In 2005, grants from Artists Space, Socrates Weblog (http://www.tideandcurrenttaxi. she started her Tide and Current Taxi Sculpture Park, the Harpo Founda- org/) documentation of trips in a row- project, a makeshift rowing boat built tion, and the Alice Kimball English boat water taxi operated by the artist in New York Harbor from salvaged materials, with which Travel Fellowship. Her work has been Dimensions variable she ferries people around the New York shown at Southern Exposure, San Courtesy the artist harbor, visiting remote locations, secret Francisco, High Desert Test Sites in islands, and looking at the city from the Joshua Tree, California and at Artists rare perspective of the water. Each trip Space, the High Line, PS1, and Jack is planned to coincide with strong tidal Hanley Gallery in New York and she currents in the harbor, and documented has also completed solo projects at with pictures and stories on Lorenz’s Ikon in Birmingham, England and weblog: www.tideandcurrenttaxi.org. Artpace in San Antonio, Texas. In The trips become parables about the 2008, she was awarded the Joseph H. changing city. By inviting passengers to Hazen Rome Prize for the American explore New York City’s shore, Lorenz Academy in Rome. provides an opportunity to witness first hand the permeable nature of the waterfront and its unique combination of natural and artificial landscape. Lorenz’s project combines psycho- geographic exploration with highly crafted, material forms. She uses boats and navigation to create an uncer- tain space, underlying her belief that uncertainty brings about a heightened awareness of place. The act of float- ing through adds a specific presence to one’s own observation. The viewer maintains an awareness of their own balance and form as they absorb the details in their surrounding. This kind of observation creates something new out of something familiar.

106 Marie Lorenz, Tide and Current Taxi, 2005–ongoing. Courtesy the artist

107 Susan O’Malley

Born San Jose, California; lived and In her socially-based art practice, Susan in 2014. Her work has been exhibited worked, Berkeley, California O’Malley (1976–2015) used simple and at numerous alternative spaces and You Are Exactly Where You Need to Be, recognizable tools of engagement— institutions, including Contemporary 2012–2015 offering pep talks, asking for advice Art Museum, Houston; the Parthenon Temporary site-specific mural from strangers, installing roomfuls of Museum, Nashville; and Montalvo Dimensions variable Offset printed postcards inspirational posters, distributing flyers Art Center, Saratoga. Her work has 6 x 4 in. in neighborhood mailboxes, conducting been exhibited as public projects in Courtesy of Tim Caro Bruce, Romer doodle competitions at high schools— San Francisco, New York, and London, Young Gallery, San Francisco, and in order to offer entry points into the as well in other cities around the US, Galeria Rusz, Poland understood, and sometimes humorous, Poland and Denmark. interactions of everyday life. Interested As curator and Print Center director in shifting these otherwise mundane for San Jose Institute of Contemporary exchanges into heightened experiences, Art, O’Malley organized more than 50 O’Malley’s projects rely on the back- exhibitions, including solo exhibitions and-forth between herself and others in of works by Hanna Hannah and Rene the creation of the artwork. Young. Recently she taught socially O’Malley’s artwork is deeply engaged engaged public art practices as visiting in participatory exchanges, public art, faculty at California State University, and positive messaging. Often drawn Monterey Bay. Her work is represented from conversations, the work is gener- by Romer Young Gallery, San Fran- ally text-based and takes the form of cisco and Gallery Urbane, Dallas. At prints, posters and buttons, large-scale the time of her death she had recently vinyl signage and billboards, as well as completed a two-year participatory interventions. Whether advice to give public project as artist-in-residence at to your 8 or 80-year old self, or inspi- Kala Art Institute, Berkeley—a book rational signs to be discovered along a based on this project, titled Advice from nature trail, ultimately, O’Malley’s proj- My 80-Year-Old Self, will be published ects aspire to inspire hope, optimism by Chronicle Books in 2016. and a sense of interconnectedness in our lives. Susan O’Malley earned an MFA in Social Practices from California Col- lege of the Arts. Her collaborative proj- ect with Leah Rosenberg, Finding Your Center, was featured in Bay Area Now 7 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

108 Susan O’Malley, Be Here Now, You Are Exactly Where You Need to Be and Listen to Your Heart billboard, 2012, Torun, Poland. Courtesy of Tim Caro Bruce, Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco, and Galeria Rusz, Poland

109 Adrian Piper

Born New York, New York; lives and Adrian Piper’s work has sought to Piper’s art since the late 1960s can be works in Berlin, Germany transform the strategies of direct understood as consisting of an ongoing My Calling (Card) #1 & #2, 1986–1990 address and physical presence into interplay between conceptual and femi- Printed cards, cardholders, stenciled those of social criticism and political nist practices. As a conceptual artist, sign, pedestal confrontation. With My Calling (Card) Piper has stressed a rigorous analysis Each card: 2 x 3 ½ in. Sign: 12 ¾ x 23 ¾ in. #1 & #2, Piper provides a means for of self-identity, while as a feminist she Davis Museum and Cultural Center, viewers to take the confrontation of consistently challenges the philosophi- Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, racism and gender-based harassment cal underpinnings of our phallocentric Museum purchase, The Dorothy into their own hands. The piece con- language and society. Piper’s analyses Johnston Towne (Class of 1923) Fund sists of two stacks of small, wallet-size of subjectivity are invariably self- cards on which Piper has printed the questioning, informed by an essential following statements: “Dear Friend, I understanding of the mutability of her am black. I am sure that you did not own identity. realize this when you made/laughed at/ Adrian Piper is a first-generation agreed with that racist remark. In the conceptual artist who began exhibit- past, I have attempted to alert white ing her work internationally at the people to my racial identity in advance. age of 20 and graduated from the Unfortunately, this invariably causes School of Visual Arts in 1969. While them to react to me as pushy, manipu- continuing to produce and exhibit lative, or socially inappropriate. There- her artwork, she received a PhD in fore, my policy is to assume that white Philosophy from Harvard. She has people do not make these remarks, received Guggenheim, AVA, NEA, even when they believe there are no NEH, Andrew Mellon, Woodrow Wil- black people present, and to distribute son, IFK and Wissenschaftskolleg zu this card when they do. I regret any Berlin Research Fellowships, as well as discomfort my presence is causing you, the Skowhegan Medal for Sculptural just as I am sure you regret the discom- Installation and the New York Dance fort your racism is causing me,” and & Performance Award (the Bessie) for “Dear Friend, I am not here to pick Installation & New Media. She was anyone up, or to be picked up. I am the recipient of the Leone D’Oro at the here alone because I want to be here, 56th Venice Biennale. Her principal ALONE. This card is not intended as publications are in metaethics, Kant, part of an extended flirtation. Thank and the history of ethics. Piper was the you for respecting my privacy.” first tenured African American woman Viewers are encouraged to take the professor in the field of philosophy. cards for their own use. The course of

110 Adrian Piper, My Calling (Card) #1 & #2, 1986– 1990. Courtesy the artist and Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA

111 Laurie Jo Reynolds|Tamms Year Ten

Born Atlanta, Georgia; lives and works Laurie Jo Reynolds is an artist, policy sensory deprivation. Photo requests in Chicago, Illinois advocate, and researcher who has from the men in Tamms included the

How to take a photo for someone in dedicated two decades to addressing sacred mosque in Mecca, comic book solitary, 2009–ongoing the negative representations of people heroes locked in epic battle, Egyptian 14 mounted photos with captions in prison. Her work takes the form artifacts, a lovesick clown, and a grey

Photo requests from solitary, of legislative art, which participates and white horse rearing in weather cold 2009–ongoing and intervenes in government sys- enough to see its breath. In 2013, in 8 framed original requests tems, with the goal of concrete politi- collaboration with Parsons The New Courtesy Tamms Year Ten cal change. Reynolds has focused on School for Design, Solitary Watch, Tamms Year Ten (TY10) is led by artist Tamms Correctional Center, the noto- and the National Religious Campaign Laurie Jo Reynolds with a coalition of rious supermax prison in southern Illi- Against Torture, the project expanded prisoners, ex-prisoners, families, artists and other concerned citizens. TY10 nois designed for sensory deprivation. to California and New York. Photo successfully petitioned against Chicago’s In 2007, Reynolds collaborated with Requests from Solitary is currently filling Tamms Supermax Prison, a facility men formerly and currently incarcer- requests from these states, and using designed for sensory deprivation and ated at Tamms, their families and other the project to support local campaigns solitary confinement; it closed in 2013. The Tamms Poetry Committee was a artists to launch Tamms Year Ten, a vol- to stop the use of solitary confinement. group of artists who initiated a poetry unteer grassroots legislative campaign Laurie Jo Reynolds’ work strategi- exchange with prisoners to provide to reform or close the prison. Due social contact and to act against the cally engages with government sys- in part to their extraordinary efforts, psychological torture of solitary confine- tems, with the goal of concrete political ment; the group's projects evolved polit- Tamms supermax—which came to change. As a 2010 Soros Justice Fellow, ically towards what Reynolds’ calls “leg- symbolize our increasingly punitive, Reynolds researched and advocated for islative art” as their engagement with dehumanizing and counter-productive prisoners deepened. Photo Requests best practices to stop sexual abuse and criminal justice system—was shuttered from Solitary was a 2009 initiative that reduce crime recidivism. In 2014, she invited people in solitary confinement on January 4, 2013. to describe an image they would like to and her cat Leon had a residency at the see and have their request fulfilled by an In addition to relentless lobby- Museum of Arte Útil at the Van Abbe- artist. In 2013 the project was expanded ing, the campaign featured cultural museum in the Netherlands. Reynolds to people in New York and California projects such as Photo Requests from was one of the inaugural recipients of A prisons through a collaboration with Jeanine Oleson, assistant professor of Solitary, an ongoing collaboration with Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially photography, art, media and technology Reynolds, Tamms Year Ten, Jeanine Engaged Art (2014) and was awarded at Parsons The New School for Design, Oleson, and Jean Casella/Solitary Creative Time’s Leonore Annenberg and Jean Casella, co-director and co-editor-in-chief of Solitary Watch. Watch, which invites men in isolation Prize for Art and Social Change (2013). to request a photograph of anything She is assistant professor of Public at all, real or imagined. The result- Arts, Social Justice and Culture at ing photographs provide an archive of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s the hopes, memories, and interests of School of Art and Art History. Americans who live locked in cells for 23 hours a day in extreme isolation and

112 MY AUNTIE’S HOUSE ON THE BLOCK—DARRIUS Darrius requested a photograph from Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, asking that the image include his auntie’s house and the whole block of 63rd and Marshfield, at 2:00pm, facing east. He wanted the photographer to talk to residents in the neighborhood, including his aunt, and see if they remembered him. “Let the people outside know that the picture is for ‘D-man,’” he wrote. Photo by Chris Murphy, 2012.

MOM, MONEY AND MANSION—ROBERT T. Robert, a man with a serious mental illness, sent Tamms Year Ten a photo of his mother, who had died the previous year. Because he had no family and no visitors, he was hopeless and desolate. He asked for an image of “my mother standing in front of a mansion, or Big Castle, with a bunch of money on the ground. OR if you can’t do that, THEN a substitution is a big mansion or castle with a bunch of money in front of it and a black hummer parked in front of it. I truly appreciate this a lot… Now I know somebody out there in the world cares about us in here.” Photo by Jeanine Oleson, 2013.

113 Favianna Rodriguez

Born Oakland, California; lives and Known for using art as a tool for activ- with EastSide, Rodriguez is a co-owner works in Oakland, California ism, Favianna Rodriguez got her start of TUMIS, an East Oakland-based

Migration is ______, 2015 as a political poster designer in the design firm that provides design, tech- Newspaper ad, letters from women 1990s during the struggles for racial nology and communication strategy in Karnes County Civil Detention justice in Oakland, California. Car- services for social justice organizations Center, Texas, coloring sheets, children’s activity area rying on the tradition of the Chicano and nonprofits. arts movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Dimensions variable Faviana Rodriguez has worked Courtesy the artist, commissioned by Rodriguez is part of a new generation closely with artists in Mexico, Europe, Mills College Art Museum of artists devoted to public aware- and Japan, and her works appear in ness and community involvement in collections at Bellas Artes, Mexico grassroots causes. Using high-contrast City; the Glasgow Print Studio, colors and vivid figures, her composites Glasgow, Scotland; Los Angeles reflect literal and imaginative migra- County Museum of Art, Los Ange- tion, global community, and interde- les; and the Oakland Museum of pendence. Whether her subjects are California, Oakland. She has had immigrant day laborers in the U.S., artist residencies at San Francisco’s mothers of disappeared women in de Young Museum and at Kala Art Juárez, Mexico, or her own abstract self Institute, Berkeley. She received a 2006 portraits, Rodriguez brings new audi- Sea Change Residency from the Gaea ences into the art world by refocusing Foundation (Provincetown, MA). the cultural lens. Through her work we Rodriguez is recipient of a 2005 award witness the changing U.S. metropolis from the Center for the Study of Polit- and a new diaspora in the arts. ical Graphics. In 2003, she co-founded A largely self-taught artist, Rodri- the Taller Tupac Amaru printing studio guez learned about silk-screening in to foster resurgence in screenprinting. her teens by taking free art classes She is co-founder of the EastSide Arts offered in the Fruitvale District of Alliance (ESAA) and Visual Element, Oakland, where she was raised. As an both programs dedicated to training activist, Rodriguez goes far beyond young artists in the tradition of mural- creating posters and other graphic ism. She is additionally co-founder work. She helped found the EastSide and president of Tumis Inc., a bilingual Arts Alliance (ESAA), an organization design studio helping to integrate art that supports Oakland neighborhoods with emerging technologies. through arts programs and by mak- ing available performance and studio space and even a number of affordable housing units. In addition to her work

114 Favianna Rodriguez, Migration is Beautiful, wheatpaste action in Charlotte, North Carolina, during the National Democratic Convention, September 2012

115 Bonnie Ora Sherk

Born New Bedford, Massachusetts; lives In Bonnie Ora Sherk’s Sitting Still Sculpture from San Francisco State and works in New York City, New York Series, the artist sat for approximately University. Her work has been exhibited and San Francisco, California one hour in various locations around at the Van Abbemuseum, Netherlands; Sitting Still Series, 1970 San Francisco as a means to subtly the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Digital projection, photo documenta- change the environment simply by Film Archive, the CCA Wattis Institute tion of performances Dimensions variable becoming an unexpected part of it. At for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; Courtesy the artist the first performance, Sherk, dressed in the Los Angeles County Museum of a formal evening gown, sat in an uphol- Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, stered armchair amidst garbage and Tokyo; the Museum of Contemporary creek runoff from the construction of Art, Los Angeles; among many others. the Army Street freeway interchange. In 2000, her project A Living Library Facing slow moving traffic, her audi- became part of the permanent research ence was the people driving by. collection of the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History. The following month Sherk sat silently in the midst of a flooded city dump at California and Montgomery Streets. Other locations in the series included the Financial District, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Bank of America plaza. Sherk also continued her piece at the San Francisco Zoo in a number of indoor and outdoor animal cages. Sitting Still culminated in the performance Public Lunch, in which the artist ceremoniously ate an elaborately catered lunch in an empty cage located next to a cage of lions during public feeding time at the zoo. The project reinforced Sherk’s com- mitment to studying the interrelation- ship of plants, animals, and humans with the goal of creating sustainable systems for social transformation. Bonnie Ora Sherk, artist, environ- mentalist, and landscape architect, received her MA in Environmental

116 Bonnie Ora Sherk, Sitting Still Series—Financial District, San Francisco, 1970. Courtesy the artist

117 Stephanie Syjuco

Born Manila, Philippines; lives and Stephanie Syjuco uses the tactics of �Born in the Philippines, Stephanie works in San Francisco, California bootlegging, reappropriation, and fic- Syjuco received her MFA from Stan- Ultimate Vision (Dazzle Camouflage), tional fabrications to address issues of ford University. Her work has been 2013; printed 2015 labor and globalization. Her practice, shown nationally and internationally, Unsolicited project proposal for Google informed by the open source move- and included in exhibitions at PS1, the worker commuter system, San Francisco Bay Area ment, encourages her audience to par- Whitney Museum of American Art, Digital prints ticipate as collaborators, producers, and the New Museum of Contemporary Dimensions variable distributors. She retranslates “original” Art, in New York; Yerba Buena Cen- Courtesy the artist and Catharine Clark objects in order to point to the shift in ter for the Arts and the San Francisco Gallery, San Francisco distribution of wealth and power. Ulti- Museum of Moderna Art; the Con- Bedazzle A Tech Bus (I Mock Up Your mate Vision (Dazzle Camouflage) offers temporary Museum, Honolulu; and Ideas), 2013–2014; printed 2015 an unsolicited project proposal for the the California Biennial at the Orange Digital prints Dimensions variable Google worker commuter system that County Museum of Art, among others. Courtesy the artist and Catharine Clark runs throughout the Bay Area. A point She has led workshops for her ongoing Gallery, San Francisco of contention for an area with growing global collaborative Counterfeit Cro- economic disparity, the Google buses chet Project at art spaces in Istanbul, have become a symbol of wealth ineq- Beijing, and Manila, her work was the uity and elitism. subject of solo exhibition at the Con- temporary Arts Museum, Houston. In In Ultimate Vision, Syjuco proposes 2012, she was commissioned to create wrapping Google commuter buses in a an installation for FOR-SITE’s project bold, vibrant pattern to create a mov- International Orange: Artists respond to ing public art project that would be the Golden Gate Bridge at 75. highly visible throughout the streets of the San Francisco Bay Area and high- ways of Silicon Valley. Using a geo- metric black and white pattern derived from “dazzle camouflage”—a World War I visual treatment painted onto the exterior of battleships and meant to confuse enemy aim—Syjuco’s idea is to adorn the deliberately plain Google buses with a dramatic and energiz- ing “wrap,” similar to the advertising wraps seen on San Francisco’s public MUNI buses. The project aims to remove the anonymity of this private system of transport.

118 Stephanie Syjuco, Detail from Ultimate Vision (Dazzle Camouflage), 2013. Courtesy the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco

119 Mierle Laderman Ukeles

Born Denver, Colorado; lives and works The art of Mierle Laderman Ukeles Mierle Laderman Ukeles works in in New York City, New York is about the everyday routines of life. a variety of mediums, creating instal-

Touch Sanitation Performance, 1977– Examining the relationship between lations, performances, and audio and 1980/2007 those who live in the community and video works. She has completed six Slide projection, 30 color slides those who serve it, she eradicates the “work ballets,” involving workers, Courtesy the artist and Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York boundary between traditional art and trucks, barges and hundreds of tons routine life. of recyclables in places such as New Artist’s Letter of Invitation Sent to Every York, Pittsburgh, France, Holland, Sanitation Worker with Performance Since 1977, when she became the and Japan. Her work has been exhib- Itinerary for 10 Sweeps in All 59 Districts official, unsalaried artist-in-residence , 1979 ited at P.S. 1/MOMA, New York; the in New York City at the New York City Department of 4 printed brochures mounted on board Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Sanitation—a position she still holds— with Plexiglas Angeles; the Bronx Museum of Arts; 3 at 25 ½ x 19 in. Ukeles has created art that deals with the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; 1 at 19 x 25 ½ in. the endless maintenance and service Courtesy the artist and Ronald Feldman the Tel Aviv Museum; the Sharjah work that keeps the city alive—urban Gallery, New York Biennial; and the Contemporary Jew- waste flows, recycling, and ecology. In ish Museum, San Francisco. Awards Touch Sanitation she draws attention include multiple grants from the to the maintenance of urban ecological National Endowment for the Arts, systems in general and the use of pejo- fellowships from the John Simon rative language to represent “garbage Guggenheim, the Foundation for men,” in particular. Jewish Culture, Andy Warhol, Joan Ukeles traveled throughout New Mitchell, and Anonymous Was a York City to shake the hands of over Woman Foundations among others. 8500 sanitation employees or “sanmen” Her most recent teaching position was during a year long performance. She in Sculpture at Yale University. documented her activities, meticulously recording her conversations with the workers. Ukeles documented the work- ers’ private stories, fears, castigations, and public humiliations in an attempt to change some of the negative ver- nacular words used in the public sphere of society. In this way, Ukeles uses her art as an agent of change to challenge conventional language stereotypes.

120 Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Touch Sanitation Performance, 1978–1980, Handshake Ritual with workers of the NYC Department of Sanitation. Courtesy the artist and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York

121 Southern Exposure Off-Site Commissions� Valerie Imus

in what one might think of as the natural evolution of late capital- ism, all landscape has become real estate and all terrain is divided into commodities and markets. Our individual locations and habits are tracked by various corporate entities and government agencies. The public realm has become a parceled and virtualized entity. What remains is an ephem- eral public, or rather multiple inchoate publics, lingering between us, in the non-marketized, disordered spaces between target audiences. The art- ists in Public Works: Off-Site rally the chaotic will of the everyday pushing and pulling against the directives of capital and the agents that systemati- cally privilege private interests. Since 1974, Southern Exposure has supported risky behavior in the public realm. We don’t always know what will happen, but we encourage and trust artists to take us into new spaces and reframe what we think we already know. For Public Works: Off-Site, Southern Exposure partners with the Mills College Art Museum and curators Christian L. Frock and Tanya Zimbardo to invite artists Constance Hockaday and Jenifer K. Wofford to create new day-long experiential projects in our urban environments. These two site-specific projects culminate as one-time, event-based interventions in public spaces in San Francisco and Oakland,

122 and on the waterways in between. These artists work in collaborative net- works while examining the bureaucratic and technological networks that keep us apart. They act as our guides to systems that regulate and obstruct access to various publics, making them visible to us in the process. Our attempts to organize, define and secure our public space can some- times erect blockades to its access. Public institutions established for the ostensible purpose of insuring public safety are so often leveraged to protect private interests and limit access. As our urban spaces are radically transformed by forces seemingly out of our control, perhaps we need to learn from the water. Water acts with flexibility and spontaneity, flowing around the obstacles it encounters, and occasionally becoming powerfully destructive. On both land and sea, security can be elusive. Perhaps the safest methods lie in embracing insecurity, in being curious, in trusting the ridiculous chaos of living together in city spaces. Jenifer K. Wofford and Constance Hockaday call to us to inhabit and shape these potentially unsafe and unwelcoming territories and seemingly already claimed public spaces that lie between us. Launching into the uncharted territories of the murky bay and our public infrastructure, the collaborative exploration itself inscribes a new shared mutable territory.

123 Constance Hockaday

Born Port Isabel, Texas; lives and works Constance Hockaday makes collabora- Factory, Los Angeles; Apex Art, New in San Francisco, California tive, participatory projects on the water. York; the Portland Art Museum; and

For Project Row Houses Para/site, Hous- You Make a Better Wall Than a Window: You Make a Better Wall Than a Win- The Tour, 2015 dow: The Tour, Hockaday reflects upon ton; among others. She has been a Site-specific event our relationship to waterways in urban TED Fellow and has received grants Courtesy the artist, commissioned by space. As a sailor and artist whose work from Southern Exposure, SOMArts Southern Exposure in collaboration with the Mills College Art Museum is based on the ocean, her research Cultural Center, the East Bay Com- closely examines how government bod- munity Fund, the Center for Cultural ies and institutions have come to create Innovation, and the City of Oakland. barriers to the accessibility of the water. Recent projects have been rooted in collaborations with working class har- bor communities—traditionally groups of outsiders on land who come together to support each other on the water, in spite of the challenges of port authority regulations and the financial demands of boat upkeep. Hockaday notes that our disconnection from the water allows us to continue behaving in ways that directly endanger the wellbeing of water-based ecosystems that we rely on. For You Make a Better Wall, visitors will join Hockaday on a ferry ride across San Francisco Bay as the artist narrates the evolution of our relationship to the ports, discussing contrasts between maritime law and laws that apply on land, and investigating the territories and boundaries we create for ourselves. Hockaday received both an MA in Conflict and Resolution and MFA in Socially Engaged Art from Portland State University. Her work has been included in exhibitions at Southern Exposure, San Francisco; SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco; Flux

124 Constance Hockaday, San Francisco Bay, 2015, Courtesy of Southern Exposure

125 Jenifer K. Wofford

Born San Francisco, California; lives In her wide-ranging practice, Jenifer rary, Philippines; VWFA, Malaysia; and and works in San Francisco, California K. Wofford creates camp spectacles Osage Gallery, Hong Kong. Wofford’s

that hilariously deconstruct systems awards include the Eureka Fellowship, MaxiPad, 2015 Site-specific performance of power. Her performative collabo- the Murphy Fellowship, and grants Courtesy the artist, commissioned by rations with the trio collective Mail from the Art Matters Foundation, Southern Exposure in collaboration Order Brides/M.O.B. (with Eliza the Center for Cultural Innovation, with the Mills College Art Museum Barrios and Reanne Estrada) enact a UCIRA, and the Pacific Rim Research hyper-feminine drag drawing heavily Program. She has also been artist-in- on Filipina stereotypes. Her absurdist residence at The Living Room, Philip- performances, paintings and installa- pines; Liguria Study Center, Italy; and tions point to the ways we perform and KinoKino, Norway. confront neocolonialism, class, race, gender, and occasionally incorporate giant cockroaches and portable toilets. At a moment when our right to peaceable assembly has been dramati- cally eroded, staging a parade can be a radical act. With a flair for pageantry, Wofford and her collaborators take to the streets of Oakland to consider the ways in which we work to create a sense of safety in public. For MaxiPad, Wofford gathers a carnivalesque pro- cession of padded, costumed characters to confront issues of vulnerability and gender in public space. Wofford received her MFA from the University of California, Berkeley. Her work has been exhibited in the Bay Area at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the Oakland Museum of California, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Southern Exposure, and Kearny Street Workshop. Further afield, she has shown at New Image Art, Los Angeles; Wing Luke Museum, Seattle; DePaul Museum, Chicago; Manila Contempo-

126 Jenifer K. Wofford, in Mail Order Brides/M.O.B., Divide // Conquer: The Manananggoogle Onboarding Experience, 2013, Courtesy of Southern Exposure

127

Contributors

mara del carmen carrin

María del Carmen Carrión is an independent curator and art critic from Quito, who received an MA in curatorial practice from the �California College of the Arts, and taught at Universidad Católica in Quito. She is currently director of public programs & research at Independent Curators International in New York. She co-founded Constructo /, an international collective platform devoted to research and debate of art and visual cul- ture. Since 2009, she has been a member of the curatorial college of cero- inspiración, an exhibition and residency space in Quito. Recent projects include: The Life of Objects, VOGT Gallery, New York (2011), Materia Prima, 8va Bienal de Mercosur, Porto Alegre (2011), Otros Fueros, col- laboration with Tercerunquinto, EACC, Castelló (2011), Historias Fugaces, LABoral, Gijón (2011), and The Nature of Things (2010) at the Biennial of the Americas, chief curator Paola Santoscoy, Denver. Former positions include: associate curator at New Langton Arts in San Francisco, and research coordinator for Museo de la Ciudad in Quito. courtney fink

Courtney Fink is an organizer, curator, and formerly the executive direc- tor of Southern Exposure. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Seed Fund, and is a co-founder of Common Field.

129 From 2003–2015 she led Southern Exposure through tremendous change and growth, including three relocations and the development of the organization’s current Mission District building. She initiated SoEx Off-Site, the organization’s public art program, and she founded the Alternative Exposure Grant Program, which has been replicated nationally in nine other cities. Fink has helped to organize more than 500 projects and events. She has held positions at California College of the Arts and Capp Street Project in San Francisco, as well as Franklin Furnace in New York. She has lectured extensively and has juried more than 30 grant and program opportunities around the US. Originally from Los Angeles, Fink holds a BA in art history and fine arts from Skidmore College. For twenty years, Fink has been dedicated to developing the capacity of visual artists and the systems that support them. She is committed to working at the vanguard of new ideas and in service of visual artists whose work is experimental and engaged with the world. In 2012, she co-founded, along with a group of national arts leaders, Common Field, a network of visual arts organizers and organizations that support exper- imental, non-commercial contemporary art and serves as a platform for learning, advocacy, and exchange.

christian l. frock

Christian L. Frock is an independent writer, curator and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her practice focuses on art and politics, and the role of artists in public life and social justice. Invis- ible Venue, the alternative curatorial enterprise Frock founded and has directed since 2005, collaborates with artists to present art in public spaces, online and in the built environment. Her 2010 project with Mills College Art Museum, titled Here & Now, featured temporary site-specific commissions by Elaine Buckholtz, Christine Wong Yap and Floor Vahn in historic sites around Oakland. She has organized public programs, exhibitions, and special commissions with numerous organizations, including Headlands Center for the Arts, Kala Art Insti- tute, Oakland Main Public Library, San Jose State University, South- ern Exposure, SOMArts Cultural Center, Emergency USA | Thoreau Center for Sustainability, Works/San José, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, among others.

130 Frock’s writing has been featured in Art&Education, art ltd., Art Practical, Daily Serving, Fillip, The Guardian US, Hyperallergic, KQED Arts, NPR.org, San Francisco Arts Monthly, San Francisco Chronicle, SFMOMA Open Space, and USA Today. Frock’s 2014 Priced Out essays for KQED Arts on new technology wealth and its impact on Bay Area artists were named among “The Most Important Art Essays of the Year” by Ben Davis, national critic for artnet News and author of 9.5 Theses on Art and Class. Frock is a regular public speaker and has been featured in public pro- grams at the Bay Area Society for Art & Activism, Berkeley Art Center, Kansas City Art Institute, Palo Alto Art Center, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Yale Radio, among others. She is visiting faculty at California College of the Arts, California Institute of Integral Studies and San Francisco Art Institute. Chronicle Books published her first book, titled Unexpected Art, in spring 2015. Frock is 2015–2016 Scholar in Residence at California College of the Arts, Center for Art and Public Life. She possesses an MA in curatorial practice from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Her work is archived online at www.invisiblevenue.com and www.visiblealternative.com leila grothe

Leila Grothe works as a curator and writer with a particular interest in interventionist-based artistic practice focused in political activism and social engagement. She currently works as the director of curatorial affairs at the 500 Capp Street Foundation and the assistant curator at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco. Grothe received her MA in curatorial practice from the California College of the Arts and was appointed as curatorial fellow at the CCA Wattis Institute upon graduating. Prior to this, Grothe was Assistant Director of External Affairs at Southern Methodist University Meadows School of the Arts in Dallas, Texas, where she worked as an active figure in developing the SMU Meadows School’s Forum for Art and Urban Engagement initia- tive. She received a 2011 Idea Fund Grant funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts to realize a community-based project at the Trinity River Audubon Center in Dallas, Texas.

131 stephanie hanor

Stephanie Hanor has been the assistant dean and director of the Mills College Art Museum (MCAM) since September 2009. She received her PhD in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining MCAM, she was the senior curator and curatorial depart- ment head at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD). During her eight years at MCASD she curated over 40 exhibitions and projects, including a series of site-specific installations featuring major works by Tara Donovan, Raymond Pettibon, Nancy Rubins, and Santiago Cucullu. She also organized major traveling exhibitions, including the retrospective of San Diego painter and film critic Manny Farber, the focus exhibition Jasper Johns: Light Bulb, and an exhibition featuring the Latin American and Latino holdings of the Museum, TRANSactions: Contemporary Latin American and Latino Art, all with accompanying catalogues. At MCAM she oversees an active contemporary exhibition program that has featured new work by Binh Danh, Kathryn Spence, Frances Stark, Karen Kilimnik, and Sarah Oppenheimer.

valerie imus

Valerie Imus has acted as the projects and exhibitions program director at Southern Exposure since 2011, where she has organized numerous projects, including New Games Revisited, Sets, How to Move a Mountain, White Hot Lamp Black and Hopeless and Otherwise. Formerly, she was the exhibitions manager at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the curatorial associate at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco. She has also organized projects at the Oakland Museum of California and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and written for Art Practical and Stretcher. She is a collaborative member of the collectives The Citizens Laboratory and OPENrestaurant and holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

meredith johnson

Meredith Johnson has acted as curator and director of consulting at Cre- ative Time since 2007, where she has curated such projects as Spencer Finch’s The River That Flows Both Ways (2009), Pae White’s Self Roaming (2009), Stephen Vitiello’s A Bell for Every Minute (2010), and The Ocean-

132 front at Art Basel Miami Beach (2010) in collaboration with the MOCAD in Detroit, Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, 032c in Berlin, and Tramway in Glasgow. She spearheaded a series of artist-chef collaborations in 2011 at Park Avenue, including interventions by Marina Abramovi´c, Paul Ramírez Jonas, Janine Antoni, and Michael Rakowitz, and in 2012 co- curated a series of ten commissioned video works for MTV’s Art Breaks, presented by Creative Time, MoMA PS1 and MTV. Johnson has also led Creative Time’s advising on arts programming in such cities as Louisville, Kentucky; Seattle, Washington; New York City, New York; Dallas, Texas; and Chicago, Illinois. In addition to her work at Creative Time, Johnson was a curator at Artists Space in New York from 2007– 2009, and the assistant director at Minetta Brook from 2005–2007. She received her BA in Art from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and her MA in curatorial practice from the California College of the Arts. tanya zimbardo

Tanya Zimbardo is the assistant curator of media arts at the San Fran- cisco Museum of Modern Art. She co-curated public commissions in San Francisco and Oakland for the off-site exhibition 2012 SECA Art Award: Zarouhie Abdalian, Josh Faught, Jonn Herschend, David Wilson (2013). At SFMOMA, she has also co-curated the 2010 SECA Art Award: Mauricio Ancalmo, Colter Jacobsen, Ruth Laskey, Kamau Amu Patton; Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards (2011–12); and The More Things Change (2010–11); and curated The Studio Sessions (2009). She has organized numerous screenings of film, video, and performance-based work at the museum and for organizations such as Krowswork, Oakland; the Worth Ryder Art Gallery, University of California, Berkeley; Artists’ Television Access, San Francisco; and SF Cinematheque. She has co-edited and contributed to several SFMOMA publications including Open Space. Her writing on conceptual art, per- formance, and time-based media art has additionally been published by INCITE Journal for Experimental Media; Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul; EXIT Media; and SF Camerawork Journal, among others. Zimbardo received her MA in curatorial practice from the California College of the Arts.

133 The enemies of women’s liberation in the arts will be crushed.

—Letter from artist and activist Nancy Spero to curator, critic and activist Lucy Lippard, dated October 29, 1971 curators acknowledgments

First and foremost: We are deeply grateful to all of the artists featured in Public Works: Artists Interventions’ 1970s–Now. It has been a pleasure to work with so many artists we’ve admired. We are thrilled and humbled to feature these works in this context and look forward to discussing these ideas with students, many of whom will be introduced to radical public practices through this exhibition. We also thank Stephanie Hanor, Maysoun Wazwaz, and Stacie Daniels, the exceptional team at Mills College Art Museum, for their incredible commitment to this ambitious exhibition, book, and public programs. We also offer our appre- ciation to editor Morgan Peirce and designer John Borruso for their work on this publication. We reiterate Stephanie Hanor’s thanks to all of the individuals who helped make the loans, installation, and publication possible and we extend deep gratitude to Valerie Imus and Courtney Fink, our friends at Southern Exposure, for partnering with us to produce new off-site commissions Our long-held interest in this subject is informed by strong female figures and we would like to expressly acknowledge the defining influences of our mothers Linda Frock and Christina Maslach. We also thank our families for their support, especially Aaron Stienstra, Asa + Cleo Frock-Stienstra, and Michael Doyle. When considering the role of women at work in public space, our initial list included more than 100 artists and was still by no means comprehensive—it is a subject that can be expanded upon endlessly. For obvious reasons (read: time and space), we narrowed our focus to a select number of artists with a sustained history of addressing public space to broadly consider historical precedents and the range of possibilities for contemporary public interventions. This in no way limits our interest in the many artists beyond the scope of this exhibition and we would like to specifically acknowledge the scores of women at work in public space all over the world, many of whom produce interventions without support or recognition, often under challenging or dangerous circumstances where so-called public expres- sion is severely limited. We see you and we appreciate you—all of you. Never stop.

Christian L. Frock Tanya Zimbardo

135

Public Works: Artists’ Interventions 1970s–Now With texts by examines strategies of public practice by women María del Carmen Carrión artists from the 1970s to the present. Through various Courtney Fink modes of practice—including web-based media, Christian L. Frock performances, happenings, installations, participa- Leila Grothe tory works, sound, street works, and legislative art, Stephanie Hanor, PhD among other media—this book considers important Valerie Imus historic and contemporary projects that explore the Meredith Johnson inherent politics and social conditions of creating art Tanya Zimbardo in public space.

Edited by Christian L. Frock and Tanya Zimbardo